I Married A Werewolf
by Kailin
Summary: My trip to London takes an unusual turn.
1. Introduction

**__**

Introduction

Adrenaline Junkies: a nurse I used to work with used the name to describe people like me. I merely thought I craved action and adventure, but now that I look at my present situation, the name truly fits. Adrenaline Junkie, I am.

My name is Kailin Curtis. Yes, Kailin is a rather unusual name for someone about to turn thirty; I hear of all sorts of little girls named 'Kailie' or 'Katelyn' these days, so I suppose I'm finally fashionable. My Grandma, however, thought the name was the height of fashion, and lobbied long and hard to convince my mother that her baby girl should be named Kailin instead of Susan or Janet or Barbara. She got the name, you see, from Lady Kailin Ford-Burke, a British socialite of the late 1930's who was renowned for some rather scandalous activities. Gran was in the throes of teenage rebellion at the time, and was much impressed by the nerve of the vivacious Lady Kailin. Originally, she thought to use the name for a future daughter. But a daughter was a long time in coming: my uncles Frank, Martin and Roger all made their appearances before my mother was born. Then, when that day finally came, Marvy lay in the hospital with my mother in her arms and blurted the first name that came to her mind: Louise. She never had a chance to use the name Kailin, so she redirected her efforts at getting my mother to consider it. I don't know how long it took, but I imagine that my poor Mom finally gave in just to get her to shut up.

Grandma's name was Marva McClain. I was supposed to call her Grandma Marva, so as not to confuse her with Grandma Ruth from Dad's side of the family, but 'Grandma Marva' was a lot for a small child to get her tongue around. I ended up calling her 'Marvy' until the day she died---a crushing day for me, just six months ago. We were _so_ much alike, she and I. I was closer to her than my own mother, and she was a better friend than many of my contemporaries. The fact that I am in Great Britain currently can all be traced to her.

Marvy, you see, was British. She, like me, was the adventurous sort. During World War 2, she became a nurse, tending to the wounded when Hitler's V-1 and V-2 rockets rained on London. She also tended to a wounded young American flyer named Billy Mitchell, and fell instantly in love. Marvy was one of the thousands of foreign war brides who settled down in America with their GI husbands following the war, but she never forgot her British roots. I loved going to visit her and Grandpa Billy during my summer vacations. We held elaborate tea parties, and she taught me to make the most delicious scones and tarts. But most of all, I loved listening to her tales of life in Britain, especially the stories of how she saved this person and that person as a war nurse. I made up my mind that I, too, would become a nurse and follow in Marvy's footsteps. 

Trouble was, when I found myself studying nursing in college, World War Two was long over, and the field I had expected to be romantic, exciting and fulfilling was complicated by drudgery, politics and insurance regulations. I kept plugging away, even when my parents were killed in a car accident my junior year. Eventually, I found my niche in Intensive Care nursing. It felt good to keep a wary eye on my patients, waiting and watching for the first signs of danger, being the one to call a 'code' when death threatened. I took a course in Flight Nursing just for the thrill of caring for a critically ill patient as we raced the clock to save a life. I flew for the better part of three years until a helicopter engine malfunction forced an emergency landing, reminding me of my own mortality and scaring the daylights out of me. From that point on, I decided to have my adventures while keeping my feet on the ground. I gave up my apartment and signed on with one of the traveling nurse agencies that provided short-term staffing solutions for understaffed hospitals across the country. For six months I worked at a large hospital in New York City, spent another three assigned to a tiny clinic in rural Montana, and finally, endured two very long months working the night shift at a Miami inner city emergency room where I felt lucky to leave with my life every morning. It was then that I received the news that Marvy was sick.

It took a massive heart attack to fell my beloved grandmother. I was able to spend one precious week at her bedside, listening once more to her tales of life in Britain and her handsome American flyer, until her big heart finally gave out completely. I was heartbroken. After the funeral, it seemed best to request a new work assignment as soon as possible. I was in the middle of doing so when I heard from Marvy's lawyer.

Marvy had left me forty thousand dollars.

To say I was stunned is an understatement. I knew that Marvy and Grandpa Billy were typically middle class: they didn't starve, but neither were they extravagant spenders. I called Grandpa Billy at once, blubbering all over myself about how I couldn't take the money, that it was his, that I didn't deserve it. He flat out refused.

"Marva loved you, Kailin. Out of our four kids and eight grandkids, she loved you more dearly than anyone. She set aside some money for you when you were born and kept adding to it over the years. I think she'd planned to give it to you for a wedding present or a down payment on a house...." Grandpa Billy's voice trailed off. 

It was unnecessary for him to say more. I understood. As far as marriage was concerned, I was all for it; the problem was, I had yet to meet the right man. And buying a house was out of the question as long as I maintained my gypsy lifestyle. I had unwittingly spoiled my grandmother's plans by failing to marry or stay in one place long enough to own property. So what to do with forty thousand dollars? The obvious choice was to invest it, but somehow I knew that wouldn't follow Marvy's intent. I was able to support myself, and she knew it. This money was gravy, icing on the cake. I tried to picture Marvy as a young woman confronted with a sudden windfall, and suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

I was going to England. I was going to take six months off from working as a nurse and use that time to visit the places Marvy had so often described. I was going to see the Changing of the Guard, tread the moors, eat at pubs. I was going to have tea, shop at Harrods, and ride a double decker bus. 

Marvy, I knew, would be proud.


	2. Chapter 1: King's Cross

**__**

Chapter 1: King's Cross, June 1996

I was in a bad mood. The train trip from the Lake District had been excruciatingly long, thanks to a coach full of happy football---that's soccer, to us Yanks---fans, intent on celebrating their team's win. They had enough food and drink to stock a small pub. I spent several hours sitting with a snoring drunk slumped against my left shoulder and two alert drunks making crude sexual suggestions from the seat across from me. My feet hurt from my Lake District hiking holiday, my head hurt from the noise level in the coach, and PMS was gnawing at me. The train couldn't park itself at the station fast enough, as far as I was concerned.

My trip to Britain---my _experience in Britain_, I had taken to calling it---was half over. It had gone well enough: I'd rented a small furnished flat in London and used it as a home base for my travels. So far I'd seen more museums and historic sites than you could shake a stick at. I had accomplished my early goal of finding what was left of Marvy's family in England, and was politely received for a few days before it became clear that I was close to overstaying my welcome. I was footloose and fancy-free, doing everything I'd ever dreamed of, and still had plenty of money.

And I was tired and lonely. 

It would have been so delightful to share this trip with Marvy. She would have been thrilled to accompany me on this adventure, having the time of her life. I told myself that if I ever had a wad of money to bestow on someone, I would be sure to do so _before_ I died. 

The train came to a final, shuddering halt at Kings' Cross. I pushed the snoring drunk off my shoulder and collected my bag, not caring if I stepped on the toes of the still exuberant fans clogging the aisles. Only a taxi ride separated me from a hot bath, and I was determined to make the wait as short as possible. I pushed my way off the train and down the crowded platform, dodging other passengers when suddenly---without warning---things began spilling from my backpack.

The backpack had five separate sections, and unfortunately, the one doing all the spilling was the one with my valuables. Coins, bills, credit cards, makeup, passport and even several tampons tumbled all over the platform. Aghast, I stopped in my tracks, not knowing what to grab first. Behind me, one of the drunken fans stumbled into me, knocking me flat onto the pavement and nearly landing on top of me. Several of his equally drunk friends helped him upright, then one of them turned and made a nasty comment about Americans in general and American women in particular.

I floundered around, trying to snatch my belongings, while a throbbing in my right knee told me I had probably torn my jeans and removed a decent amount of flesh when I fell. People were detouring around me, but no one bothered to stop and give me a hand. Anger coursed through me: if only someone would help, I seethed inwardly, I wouldn't be blocking traffic anymore. Idiots… A glint of gold caught my eye and I looked up just as the tube with my favorite lipstick rolled off the platform and under the center of the train. It was ridiculous---I didn't care much about that particular shade of lipstick, actually---but it was the last straw. I sat back on my heels in the middle of the platform, covered my face with my hands and burst into tears. Suddenly, a male voice penetrated my misery. 

"Miss? I saw what happened. Can I help?"

I hastily wiped at the tears with the back of one hand. 

"Oh! Uh, thank you," I stammered. A man was stooped down in front of me, picking up the things I hadn't managed to collect, piling them up at my feet. Meanwhile, I fumbled with my backpack, trying to see what had caused the problem and looking for a new storage spot for the errant items. The zipper of the offending section, I determined after a few seconds, worked perfectly. Then what---? 

"You go on," I heard the man say to someone. "I'll meet you back at the place later."

I looked up, just in time to see an odd-looking couple nod, then turn and fade into the crowd. The woman had bright pink hair, I was certain; it was hard to miss. But the man…. Were my eyes still so blurred with tears that his one eye had seemed enormous in comparison with the other? And moving independently? 

Ridiculous. I turned my attention to my backpack. I still didn't know what the problem was, but I had to empty out the problem pocket before it completely emptied itself of its own accord. 

"Just put everything in here," I muttered, sliding another zipper open so he could dump the items inside.

It took us another minute to determine that we'd collected everything except for the lipstick. I would have crawled under a train to retrieve my passport or credit card, but the lipstick would simply have to rot there, a souvenir of a miserable end to a miserable train trip. 

"Are you sure?" the man asked, glancing toward the lipstick tube. "I could try to reach it for you."

"No, it's quite all right. You've been very kind. I won't have you crawling around under the coaches. You'll ruin your clothes."

The man stood, then helped me to my feet. He wore an amused smile, and as I got a better look at him, it occurred to me that ruining his clothes was probably the farthest thing from his mind. The sweater---jumper, I reminded myself---looked like it had been darned more than once, and the trousers seemed almost threadbare in places. But they were clean and pressed, and I wrenched my eyes from his apparel to his face.

__

Kind. That was my first impression. The second impression was that he was middle aged. Or was he? It was hard to place. His brown hair was rather shaggy and tinged with gray, and there were creases in his face that looked as though they'd arrived earlier in life than were necessary. And there was a tiredness in the eyes that made my own fatigue seem amateurish by comparison. The third impression, as he smiled directly at me, was that he was actually quite attractive. 

"I need to apologize," I said. "I usually don't burst into tears when I get off a train."

"Oh, I don't know." The man glanced toward the lobby of the station, the direction in which the drunks had disappeared. "If I had to travel with that lot, I'd burst into tears myself."

I grimaced. "They were all over my coach. And my compartment. And me, as a matter of fact. One of them was in a stupor, and he was sprawled all over me. He absolutely reeked. I probably do as well, and I haven't had a drop."

He chuckled at that. "What happened with your knapsack? Broken zipper?"

"I don't know. That zipper seemed fine when I checked it…" I hoisted the bag up for a closer look. The crowd was thinning now, and I could easily swing the backpack into my arms without wiping out other passengers in the process. I probed at the zipper again, then at the pocket. 

"Here's the problem," he said, reaching out with a slender finger. "Look, the zipper itself has ripped away from the canvas."

"Oh. So it has." I wondered briefly if it could be repaired. I liked the backpack immensely: it was generally sturdy, had plenty of pigeonholes for storage, and had seen me all over Britain during the past three months. "I hope I can find someone to fix it for me. I really like it."

"I'm Remus Lupin, by the way."

The name was odd, but by now I was accustomed to some of the names the British gave their offspring. For every Thomas or James or William there were twice as many more Dougals, Ansons and Crispins. Not that I should talk: my own name was a British oddity. 

"Pleased to meet you, Remus. I'm Kailin Curtis." I held out my hand, and he took it.

"Kailin. That's an interesting name. A family name?"

Not unless I was actually related to the promiscuous society maven. "No, but it was my grandmother's favorite. And it doesn't shorten to anything, which is another reason I like it."

"'Remus' is the same in that respect. You can't make any silly nicknames out of it." 

Remus Lupin was smiling, and I decided I liked the looks of his smile and the way it made the corners of his eyes crinkle. I couldn't help smiling in return.

"I really can't thank you enough," I said earnestly.

"It was nothing. Any gentleman would have done the same."

"Well, I truly appreciate it. You seem to be the only gentleman around today." The time had come for me to start walking. After all, I had my lost articles and there was no reason to hang around on the platform. But for some reason, I was reluctant to budge.

"Not at all."

Remus was still smiling, and unless I missed my guess, he was every bit as reluctant to leave as I was. The thought filled me with a pleasant giddiness. Perhaps the drunken football fans were to be thanked after all.

"Would you---" I hesitated, praying I wasn't overstepping my bounds. I hadn't noticed a wedding ring, but with my luck, he probably had a loving wife and half a dozen darling children. But then I remembered the strange man and woman that had been with him. He didn't seem the sort to be married to someone with shockingly pink hair. "Would you like to---I mean, if you have the time,---could I buy you a cup of tea? I believe there's a place just down from the station,…"

Lupin's face went through an amazing metamorphosis in the space of mere seconds: expressions of relief, happiness, and concern sped past and I was left staring at a very surprised man. 

"That would be very nice, thank you."

The crowds were gone now: the action had shifted to a different track where another train was pulling in. We walked through the station to the entrance doors. Fortunately, my memory hadn't failed me: there _was_ a small restaurant down the street, and a respectable-looking one at that. In short order, we were seated at a table next to the window. Remus Lupin and I were face to face, and suddenly I felt overcome by shyness. I was spared the search for an opening line when he reached into his pocket, pulled out my tube of lipstick, and placed it in the middle of the table.

"I believe this is yours," he said, smiling.

I stared at the lipstick. The last time I had seen it, it was probably four feet beyond the wheels of the train and well out of reach. When had he had the time to retrieve it? That would have involved considerable crawling and maneuvering, and he'd been right in front of me the entire time. "How did you get that?' I asked.

"A lucky grab. What happened with your knapsack, do you suppose? Did you catch it on something?"

"I don't know. It was up on the luggage rack, but I must have snagged it on something at one point." Right now, I didn't care. I was going to have tea with a very nice man.

A waitress appeared at our table. "Decided what you'll be having yet?"

"Tea for me," I said. "Remus?"

"Tea is fine, thanks."

"Would you like something to go with it? This is my treat. It's not every day I get rescued." _By a handsome gentleman_, I wanted to add, but it sounded distinctly like a come-on. I've never picked up a man in my life---still hadn't, I reminded myself; I was merely repaying his kindness. 

"Well…" He looked hesitant. "I'll have a biscuit, perhaps."

The waitress disappeared, leaving Remus and I to study each other. I broke the awkward silence by shedding my lightweight jacket. I'd intended to shrug out of it, then drape it over the back of my chair. In a flash, Remus was on his feet, helping me out of my coat like the gentleman I'd already taken him for. I couldn't remember the last time any man had been so chivalrous around me. Most seemed to think helping a lady with her coat had gone the way of walking with her curbside or standing when she entered the room.

"You're American?" Remus asked, when the jacket had been firmly ensconced on chair next to me.

"Yes." I told him the whole story, about Marvy, about my heritage, about the inheritance. Somewhere in the middle of my recitation, our tea and biscuits had arrived. So far I had monopolized the conversation; now I was more than happy to munch while Remus did the talking. "What about you?" I asked. "What do you do?" 

A faint expression of dismay appeared on his face.

"I've---done some teaching," he said cautiously. 

"Oh, really? Where?" Oxford, or Cambridge, I was thinking. _That's_ why Remus looked the way he did. It was that mussed, sort of casual academic look. 

He hesitated. "A small private school, northern Scotland."

"What subject?" Literature, no doubt. 

Lupin shot me a measuring look, then: "Self-defense."

"Self-defense?" I was frankly surprised. He didn't seem the type. I was trying to picture him wearing the white judo-type garb, and it wasn't working. "Like tae kwon-do, or karate or something?"

"No." A broad smile split Lupin's face. "I'm working with a group of---citizens," he said, feeling his way through the words. "We're attempting to head off a criminal element that's been making inroads lately."

I was intrigued. "Like the mafia? Or gangs, or something?"

He nodded, but failed to clarify exactly what he meant. I thought I understood.

"So the information is restricted, I assume," I said. What did that make him? Local police? National security? The thought '_poor man's James Bond' _ crossed my mind, and I had a vivid mental image of Remus leaning against one of the King's Cross platform pillars in debonair style, murmuring "The name's Lupin. Remus Lupin." I was so busy fighting off a giggle that I missed most of his response.

"---true, in fact. I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

"I understand," I assured him. "Are you a Londoner?"

"I've lived all over. Work has---taken me a lot of different places over the years."

"Me, too." _Something else we have in common, _I thought excitedly. I told him about the traveling nurse jobs then, and he listened with a smile on his face. The conversation eventually drifted on to other subjects, and we talked and talked. He was so easy to be with. At one point, I found myself thinking that I could listen to him all day. That's why it came as a complete surprise when the waitress came over and asked if we'd be staying for supper. Supper? It was the middle of the afternoon. And then I glanced at my watch and discovered that we had been sitting for the better part of two hours. "I had no idea," I told Remus. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept you this long. I'm sure you have other obligations."

Remus studied me intently. "Ah…well, I don't actually. Have any other obligations, that is."

"Oh." I realized then that we were regarding each other with the same reluctance to part that we'd shown back on the station platform. "Would you---like to have supper with me?"

"Very much. If---I mean---if you would. If you're not tired of me yet."

"I'm not tired of you," I said, wanting to add _I don't think I'll ever be tired of you._

And so it was that we ate dinner together also. I kept wanting to pinch myself. Was Marvy looking down from heaven and clapping her hands together with glee? Had she arranged all of this somehow? I certainly wouldn't have put it past her. 

It was nearly eight by the time Remus and I finally left the restaurant. I offered to share my taxi with him, but he declined, saying that he was going in the opposite direction.

"I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed making your acquaintance," I said honestly.

"The same here, Kailin. Would you like to get together again soon?" Remus stood with his hands in his pockets, his eyes on mine. He was looking anxious, the epitome of a man expecting flat-out rejection. 

"Very much," I assured him. "When would be good for you?"

"Well,… I have a meeting tomorrow night, and then it's the full---" He broke off suddenly, his face flushing. "That is, my schedule's rather full until Friday. Would Friday night be all right?"

"Friday night would be fine." And if it weren't, I would move heaven and earth to make sure I had the night free. "Shall I give you my number, then?"

I dug around in one of the backpack compartments until I came up with a pen and a scrap of paper, then I hastily jotted down my phone number and gave it to him. Remus hailed a taxi for me, politely kissed me on the cheek, then made sure I was tucked in the back seat.

"See you Friday," he said.

"Absolutely. Good night, then." The taxi pulled away from the curb and I settled back, feeling utterly pleased with life.

I'd been back at the apartment for about an hour, humming and dancing around like an utter idiot, when I thought to check out the damage to the backpack. I found the compartment that had caused all the problems and inspected it upside down and inside out.

There was no tear. No defect. No hole. If I hadn't seen Remus poke his finger into the rip at the station, I'd swear I had imagined the entire thing. How on earth could a backpack repair itself?


	3. Chapter 2: Mystery Man

**__**

Chapter 2: Mystery Man

Raleigh's was one of the new breeds of bookstores, which offered books, music, food, and occasional live entertainment. It was the live entertainment, which had brought Remus and I here on Friday night for our first date. He'd called the day after we met, apologized again for being unable to see me again until Friday, then suggested that we meet at Raleigh's for tea and guitar music. I was a bit surprised. It was a pleasant enough idea, but the truth was that I'd been hoping for more. In fact, he called just as I was making tentative plans to shop for a killer dress that would knock his eyes out, something black, slinky, and suitable for a candlelit dinner in some fancy restaurant. Black and slinky was definitely overkill for Raleigh's.

Low-key though it was, the date turned out to be delightful. We enjoyed our tea, listened to some passable New Age guitar music, and browsed up and down the aisles of the bookstore. And we talked, again with the same easy rapport we'd established at the beginning of the week. And at the end of the evening, he again bundled me into a taxi with a chaste kiss on the cheek.

The next date was an afternoon spent prowling through several art galleries. Our following excursion was an exploration of some of London's many antique shops. By that time, we had advanced to holding hands as we strolled, and the good-bye kisses had moved from cheek to lips. He was always the perfect gentleman---too perfect, I thought; I kept waiting for a burst of passion, but it never came. I was becoming thoroughly puzzled by the enigma that was Remus Lupin. Was he the world's slowest romantic? Certainly he wasn't gay, I thought. All signs indicated that he was sexually interested in me. Several times I'd found him gazing at me with undisguised longing in his eyes. Yet something was holding him back. 

Then there was the matter of his selection of activities. Fun and offbeat though they had been, I was struck one day by the realization that they had also been cheap_._ Remus had sprung for tea a time or two, but that had been it. No visits to the movies, the theatre, anyplace where there was an admission charge of any sort. I had to admire his resourcefulness, but he evidently had next to nothing in the way of discretionary income. Just how poor was he? 

I decided to invite him to dinner at my apartment. With any other man, such an offer would probably have been construed as a straight line to bed after a brief stop at the dinner table. With Remus, however, it seemed a safe bet that there would be more eating and less snogging. He arrived precisely on time, again sporting the worn but spotless clothes, praising my apartment for its cozy comfort after a brief look around. My supper, a basic salad-meat-potatoes-vegetable-dessert effort, turned out quite well, and from the volume of food that disappeared from the table, I could tell that he enjoyed it. 

There was, however, one odd incident. As we sat down to eat, Remus seemed to be eyeing my silverware with more attention than flatware at a rental flat deserves. It was all odds and ends, certainly nothing of any value. When I asked him about it, he merely smiled and said that he believed his mother had owned a similar pattern. All was well until I passed the bowl of potatoes to him. He started to take a helping, yelped, and dropped the spoon with a clatter onto the table.

"Too hot? I'm so sorry!" A red welt had appeared on the palm of his hand. The spoon hadn't been anywhere near the stovetop, I thought; how could have it have gotten hot enough to burn a man?

"No." Remus forced a smile, cradling his injured hand close to him. "A silver allergy I have."

I'd been prepared to take him into the kitchen and run cold water over the burn. But an allergy? I'd never heard of a contact allergy that could flare up so suddenly.

"I have some Benadryl in the bathroom," I said. "Will that help?"

"I'll see what I can do," Remus said, excusing himself. 

"The Benadryl's in the medicine cabinet," I called as he disappeared down the hall.

I picked up the serving spoon he'd dropped and examined it closely. It surely wasn't sterling, that much I knew for sure. The tiny lettering on the bottom side of the handle identified it as silver plate. How, I wondered, would he react to solid silver if he were this allergic to silver plate? I reached up to feel my earlobes, trying to recall whether I had worn gold or silver earrings today: gold. That was good, I decided, since I was truly hoping he'd be nuzzling my earlobes at some point in the evening. Remus returned several minutes later and sat back down at the dining table.

"You found the Benadryl all right?" I asked, and then caught a glimpse of his right hand. There was scarcely any trace of the angry red welt that had risen so rapidly. How in the world could it have faded that quickly? It takes nearly half an hour from the time you swallow a pill until they start to do what they're supposed to do.

"I just held my hand under the tap for a while," Remus said evasively. "It's loads better."

Obviously. After supper, I cleared the table, intending to leave the dishes for later. Remus insisted on helping me do the dishes as long as he didn't have to dry the silver plate spoon. That alone, in my opinion, qualified him for near-perfection, and I handed him a dishtowel without further ado. It was in the process of reaching for a bowl that our hands connected and a flush of unmistakable sexual chemistry travelled through my body. I glanced at Remus and saw the naked desire in his eyes. 

It was the burst of passion that I had been waiting for. His kisses were desperate, almost a bit clumsy, his hands clutching at me as though he was afraid I'd vanish into thin air at any moment. And then, as suddenly as we had lunged at each other, he was trying to push me away. 

"What?" I was frustrated, angry. I wanted answers. I wanted more. I wanted him. 

Remus shoved his hands into his pockets, evidently to keep them off of me. He was exuding the air of a man about to be sentenced to Death Row. "Kailin, I need to tell you something." 

My stomach dropped smartly away. I had been so certain he was honorable…

"You're married," I blurted miserably. 

"What? No, of course not." He frowned, the accusation stopping him in his tracks. "Do you think I'd be here with you if I were?"

"No, I suppose not," I mumbled, while my mind raced to come up with another explanation. He was gay after all. Bisexual. A convicted murderer. A child molester. As the list went from bad to worse, a wave of cold panic rose up inside me. What sort of man had I fallen in love with? I _was_ in love with him, I admitted to myself. I could not pretend otherwise. 

Meanwhile, Remus reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of wood about a foot long. I stared at it blankly. What did being an orchestra conductor have to do with anything? And weren't conductors' batons a bit thinner than this? "What is it?" I croaked, totally at a loss.

There was the briefest hesitation before he answered me.

"I'm a wizard, Kailin."

Of all the bizarre jokes in the world… A bubble of sick, stricken laughter rose in my throat. "A wizard?" I repeated blankly. "I don't understand. You're in some sort of fraternal order or something?"

"No. I'm a wizard. I can perform magic."

"You pull rabbits out of hats?"

"No, those are illusionists. Muggle entertainers," Remus said quickly. "I'm talking about real magic."

My heart could sink no lower. This man I'd come to adore in the space of ten days was a certifiable nut case.

"There is no such thing as magic," I stammered. 

Remus didn't answer. Instead, he pointed the stick at the skillet we'd just washed and dried. 

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," he said, and with a flick of the stick, the skillet rose from the stove, paused momentarily in mid-air, and hung itself on the pot rack fastened to the wall.

I stared, stupefied. And I realized that I had never known what 'being at a loss for words' truly meant until right now. Unable to speak, I looked from the pot rack back to Remus. He was studying me anxiously, trying to judge my reaction. Apparently not satisfied that rendering me speechless was enough, he turned to the table and chairs where we'd dined and pointed the stick again.

"_Wingardium Leviosa." _This time, my chair rose a foot off the floor, did a little spin in concert with the stick movement, and hung there. Remus glanced at me. "Go on. Check it out."

I did. I went over to the chair, waved my hands around to feel for the strings or cables I knew weren't there, tried to tug the chair back down to the ground. But it wouldn't budge: Remus was still pointing the stick at it----_wand_, I realized with a thrill of shock. Out of the corner of my air, I saw his arm drop, The chair, suddenly heavy in my hands, landed with a loud clunk, narrowly missing my foot. 

"You're telling me," I said slowly and carefully as I walked back to him, "that there is such a thing as magic. Real magic."

Remus nodded.

"What other---uh---tricks can you do?"

He chuckled, shook his head slightly. "They're not tricks, Kailin. They're spells."

"Spells? Like witchcraft? You're not---I mean, do you do---devil worship, or something?" 

Remus shook his head again, more emphatic this time. "A common misconception. Devil worship doesn't have anything to do with magic. This is not a religion of some sort. About one in every fifty thousand people are born with some degree of magical ability. Talents, just like any other unique abilities people may have."

Except that the talented people I knew were content with skills like playing piano or watercolor painting. "Why haven't---why doesn't anyone know about---about this?" I asked, wondering vaguely how soon I'd be able to string a complete sentence together without stammering.

"It's kept well hidden. There's an entire magical community throughout the world that operates independently of the Muggle world."

"Muggle?" It was the second time he'd used the word. "What's a Muggle?"

"Muggles are non-magic people. You're a Muggle."

It was too much. In the space of two minutes, Remus Lupin had gone from adulterer to pervert to maniac to satanic priest to God knows what, and I was overwhelmed. "Do you think we could sit down while we discuss this?" I asked faintly.

"Of course." He must have realized that I looked a bit pale, for he took my elbow to steer me into the living room. I sank gratefully onto the sofa. Remus sat down beside me, still holding the wand. 

"Can I see your---wand? It is a wand, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course you can see it. Here."

He handed me the stick of wood and I took it gingerly, as though in my hands it might blow a hole through the living room wall. It was not, I noted, like the shiny black trick wands I had seen magicians use. It was very solid looking and the wood had the patina that came with years of use.

"You can wave it if you want," Remus said, smiling at the tentative way I was holding the wand. "Nothing will happen, unless you've been holding out on me and you're really a witch."

I waved it once, feeling a little foolish. As he had predicted, nothing happened. I handed it back to him. "They're different than I imagined," I said.

"Wands come in all varieties of size and flexibility, depending on the wood from which they're made. And each one has a magic core, such as tail hair from a unicorn or phoenix feathers. But the wand itself has no power. It's simply a conduit for the wizard's power."

Unicorns? Phoenixes? My jaw took a very undignified plunge. I took a deep breath. "You're telling me that there is an entire world somewhere of magical creatures and people who can do what you do."

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Here. Everywhere: Britain, the States, probably every country on the globe. As I said, it's kept hidden away. One of the primary responsibilities of the Ministry of Magic, in fact, is to keep us hidden. And to do damage control when we're not."

"But why? Why do you have to be hidden away?" There was an actual Ministry of Magic?

"Think about it, Kailin." Remus leaned forward, eager to talk now that I didn't seem to be reacting badly to his news. "We're a pitiful minority of all humankind, and minorities usually get the short end of the stick, no matter how extraordinary their talents. What do you think would happen?"

He had a point. "But---I mean, nobody knows?"

"Well, not exactly. Many witches and wizards come from Muggle families, or half-Muggle families. And there is---" he hunted for the right word, "---cooperation at the highest levels of government. It's just a lot easier for everyone if it's hushed up."

Cooperation at the highest levels of government. The only thing that could top off the evening would be to find out that flying saucers really had landed at Roswell. I pushed my hair back out of my face as if the action might clear my mind. Suddenly, it seemed that my first fear, that Remus was a married man, would have been a lot easier to deal with.

"Uhm, this is uh---incredible," I said, unable to come up with a stronger word. 

"I had to tell you, Kailin," he said softly. "I've spent the past week and a half falling in love with you, and I'm not about to keep any secrets from you."

The sudden declaration made my eyes mist over and my throat tighten. "I---I'm falling in love with you, too."

Remus looked relieved, and I was sure that he wanted to believe that none of this would make a difference in our relationship. I suppose I was relieved as well. Contrary to all my fears, he was apparently normal---although normal for Remus Lupin evidently meant something else entirely. I swallowed hard, laying a gentle hand on his cheek.

"I---I don't know what to think about all this."

"Of course you don't. It's a lot to take in …." His eyes lit up. "Would you come with me somewhere? A place here in London? I want to show you something."

Suddenly I recalled every lurid news story I'd read about women going missing because they'd gone someplace with the wrong man. On the other hand, I'd just professed to love Remus Lupin. He'd never given me a reason not to trust him, unless you counted withholding vital information about himself until ten minutes ago…. 

"All right." My dry mouth made it rather difficult to speak. "Do we take the Tube? Or should we hail a taxi?"

"Neither. We're going to Apparate," Remus said, taking my hand and pulling me up to a standing position.

"We're going to what?" 

"You'll see. You need to hold onto me." He tentatively put his arms around me.

"I like this part," I said, snuggling close. Remus had put the wand back in his coat pocket, and I could feel it as I pressed against him. "If I say it's okay that you're a wizard, will you kiss me properly?"

"How do you mean, 'properly'?" 

"You know: for longer than thirty seconds before pushing me away like I'm---"

The breath was suddenly sucked from my lungs and my head spun like a top. I felt as if my body had been going at tremendous speed and abruptly slammed into something hard. I gasped, and found that I could no longer smell the left over dinner aroma in my flat. 

I was inhaling the cool summer night air, aware that I was now someplace else entirely.


	4. Chapter 3: At Diagon Alley

**__**

Chapter 3: At Diagon Alley

"Where are we?" I gasped.

"Charing Cross." Remus turned me around so that I was facing a peeling, battered storefront. "This is the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron," he said, dropping his hands from my shoulders.

"What's the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Famous wizarding pub. It's also the portal to Diagon Alley, the shopping district. Shall we go in?"

I stared at the dilapidated building in front of me. Had I not known for a fact that I had been in my flat just thirty seconds ago, I wouldn't have believed a word of it. All I could see was peeling paint and filthy, blackened windows.

"Where's the door?" I asked.

Remus chuckled, then took my hand. Immediately, the building transformed into a charming, well-kept storefront with a placard that read THE LEAKY CAULDRON. 

"It's Muggle-warded, Kailin. So Muggles don't notice it. Look…" He released my hand and immediately the building was the same shabby edifice I'd seen at first. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and it transformed once more. 

I stared at it mutely. Remus stepped forward, opened the door, and ushered me inside.

The room was dark and smoky: evidently the no smoking bans that were commonplace everywhere else hadn't hit the wizarding world yet. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I became aware that the clientele looked absolutely nothing like the people I see at the pub down the street from my flat. It was a sea of pointed hats and jewel-bright colours contrasting with lots of black. Eyes turned to look at me, and suddenly I understood what it felt like to be the black sheep in a field of white ones. Remus must have sensed this, because he tightened his arm around me and steered my purposefully forward.

"Evening," he said, nodding to the barkeeper. 

"Evenin', sir. What can I get for you and the lady?" 

"Nothing right now. We're just passing through."

The man frowned. "Stores are closed, you know. 'Cept for the dance club, of course, but most folk go in direct through its Muggle street entrance."

"I know. We're just window shopping," Remus threw over his shoulder as we wound our way through tables toward the back of the room. I smiled and tried to act as if I'd done this every day of my life.

We passed through a doorway, went down a long hallway, and through one more door to a small, outdoor courtyard surrounded by a brick wall. I was just about to comment on the obvious dead end when Remus tapped his wand on several of the bricks and, to my amazement, an opening appeared. 

"Diagon Alley," he said, indicating that I should pass through the gateway first.

A crooked, cobblestone street stretched out in front of me, illuminated only by candle-powered street lamps. It was reminiscent of a scene from a Dickens novel. If all of the cities and town that touted their 'old-fashioned' shopping districts could see this, I thought, they'd go absolutely berserk. Remus took my hand and squeezed gently.

"Are you doing all right?"

"Fine," I mumbled, allowing him to pull me over to the first shop window. MADAME MALKINS' ROBES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, the sign said. I peered through the glass at a pair of manikins clad in dark-coloured garb. "Do all wizards wear these?" 

"Yes. Black robes are traditional, although the younger generation usually prefer something a bit more colourful. And in warmer climates, they make them much more lightweight."

Immediately I pictured the Wicked Witch from the 'Wizard of Oz' wearing hot pink instead of her usual black. It boggled the mind. Somehow the line "I'll get you, my pretties!" wouldn't have the same clout, I thought.

"I've never seen you wear one," I pointed out.

"Yes, well, if I'd been wearing a robe you'd have had a lot more questions for me before now, wouldn't you?" Remus grinned. "Besides, my robe has seen far better days."

We wandered to the next store window. 'Quality Quidditch Supplies' its sign said, and I stared at the three balls dangling beneath it.

"What's Quidditch?" 

"Wizarding sport. Rather like football, except on brooms."

"Excuse me?" I stopped dead in my tracks. He hadn't said that. He hadn't.

"It's a wizarding sport. A lot like football, except instead of one goal at each end of the 

pitch, there are---"

"No, no, no," I interrupted impatiently. "You said brooms."

His smile was almost apologetic. "Yes, Kailin. Brooms."

I don't know why that struck me as more absurd than anything else I'd discovered in the past half hour, but it did. I had lived through almost thirty Halloweens in my life and seen countless pictures of witches on brooms. Somehow the newly discovered fact that some people could make pots and chairs hover in mid-air was inconsequential next to the idea that witches actually _did _ fly about on broomsticks. Remus was gently tugging me closer to the window. 

"Look," he said, pointing to several of the brooms on display. "Just like Muggle automobiles, they can be fancy or plain, and the price varies accordingly."

The brooms sported names like _Cleansweep, Nimbus _and _Comet, _and the placards accompanying them listed attributes such as fantastic speed, fabulous cornering ability, and superior braking. It might have been ads for the latest models from Ford and Chrysler. As I stared at the window's contents, it occurred to me that I was no longer speechless. Instead, I had a million questions.

"How do you sit on them? How do they work? Is there a steering mechanism? There's no fuel, right? Are they as uncomfortable as they look? What does the letter G next to the price stand for?"

Poor Remus. It was his own fault, I thought, as I became the one pulling him by the hand from window to window and peppering him with questions. The multiple shocks of the evening had worn off, and now my relentless curiosity had taken over. To think that all this was possible, let alone _real_… At one point, I heard the whine of a jet engine overhead, the jarring note which reminded me that I wasn't on another planet completely. Then I found that if I listened very carefully, I could make out traffic sounds from the other side of wherever we were. 

My complete undoing, even beyond the revelation that the bank was run by _goblins _of all things, was the sign outside Ollivander's wand shop: MAKERS OF FINE WANDS SINCE 382 B.C. I stared at it, incredulous. 

"Are they serious?" I asked. "Three hundred eighty-two B.C.?"

"I believe so. I suppose they could be fudging a bit give-or-take a few years, but wizarding history is pretty well documented."

"Incredible," I muttered for what seemed like the millionth time.

We were nearing the end of the street now, where light and music spilled out of the dance club the bartender had mentioned. Two men emerged, both wearing purple cloaks, both heading purposefully toward us. Remus grimaced.

"Wait here, Kailin."

He walked up to the two men while I stayed behind, wondering what was going on. I could catch only snatches of the conversation, but from his gestures, it seemed that Remus was trying to reassure them on some point. The men glanced at me, back to Remus, then disappeared back into the dance club.

"What was that about?" I asked when they were gone.

Remus shook his head apologetically. "Sorry about that. Those gentlemen were from the Ministry of Magic. They just wanted to remind me that what I'm doing is technically illegal."

"What? Walking down a street?" I joked.

"No. Doing magic in front of you."

"You're kidding. You're not allowed to do that?"

"No. There are all kind of laws prohibiting performing magic in front of Muggles."

"Are they afraid I'd tell people?" I asked, bemused. "Even if I did, no one would believe me. They'd think I was crazy."

"That's one thing they count on."

"Wait a minute." I stopped dead in my tracks. "The only magic you did was back in my flat. Do you mean to tell me that somehow they knew that you were doing that?"

"Well, yes."

"But---how---?"

"Magic." Remus shrugged, a wry grin on his face.

I wasn't smiling. Someone knew what had gone on in the privacy of my apartment. It smacked of Big Brother and grated on my distinctly American civil-rights-at-all-costs-sensibilities. I was certain that the U.S. wizards, whoever they were, enjoyed a lot more freedom than this. This type of thing did not go down well at all on my side of the Atlantic.

"That's an invasion of privacy!" I was bristling with righteous indignation. "How can they do that?"

"They're trying to _prevent _an invasion of privacy, Kailin. Invasion of the wizarding world's privacy."

"It's spying," I said flatly. Evidently that was the price you paid for being able to fly on brooms and make skillets float. "They spy on you!"

"No, they don't," Remus said patiently. "I know it seems like that, but it's not."

"Then how else did they know what you were doing?"

"There's a kind of alarm system that's triggered when you say or do something against the regulations. Trust me, there's no one listening in on your private conversations."

I glanced sideways at him: Remus was looking at me anxiously, as though willing me to believe him. Obviously I couldn't even begin to understand a world I'd discovered barely an hour ago, I reminded myself. If nothing else, it was a clear reminder not to judge a book by its cover---in this case, a decidedly flashy, attractive cover. I decided to let the matter drop for now. We began walking once more.

"What did you tell them?" I asked, motioning back towards the dance club.

Remus didn't answer for a moment. Finally, he spoke. "What you have to understand is that it used to be against the law to even disclose the fact that you were a witch or wizard to a Muggle. You could marry a Muggle, but you couldn't tell him or her what you were until after the wedding. The law's been revoked a few years now, but you're still not allowed to disclose the information to just anybody."

Well, I thought, it was good to know I wasn't just anybody. "So what did you say?"

"I told him you were my fiancée," he said sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I could have said you were a friend, but I would have gotten the lecture about the security of the wizarding world and all that."

Remus looked so boyishly embarrassed that my annoyance faded a bit. "So," I asked, waving my hand toward the end of Diagon Alley, "what's to prevent me from running out tomorrow and telling the Times of London about all this?"

"Ah. Well, that would be a problem. In the first place, of course, not very many people would believe you."

"And in the second place?"

"The wizarding authorities would perform an _obliviate_ charm on you. You would forget everything you had seen and everything I had told you."

"Everything?"

"Well, pretty much everything. At the extreme, you'd remember that a nice man helped you pick up your belongings in the train station, and that's about it."

I stared at Remus, definitely not happy about the idea of someone messing with my memories. Then a light bulb went on in my head. 

"You used magic to get my lipstick from under the train," I said. "And you fixed my backpack. After I got home that night, I never could find the rip in it."

Despite the deepening darkness, I could tell that Remus was blushing. "Well, you said you liked that knapsack a lot…" he muttered. 

Magic or no magic, invasion of privacy or mere security measures, there was no denying that this man was sweet and considerate. I stopped once more, caught him by the arm, and raised myself on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you," I whispered.

We returned to the Leaky Cauldron, where Remus introduced me to something called butterbeer while I tried to look comfortable and witch-like. I don't know if I was successful, but at least there wasn't a hue and cry raised to throw the Muggle from the premises. As for the rest of the pub's patrons, I'd nearly decided that they really didn't look all that odd when a strange creature came in and bellied up to the bar. _Goblin, _Remus whispered to me, and I tried to take it in my stride. All in all, I was exhilarated but relieved when we Apparated back to my flat. We didn't make it three steps until I was in Remus' arms and he was kissing me deeply, tenderly---and then announced that he had to leave.

"No," I protested, on the verge of whining and pouting. 

"There's more I need to tell you, Kailin," he said. "I want you, but not until I've told you everything you need to know. It's only fair." 

It didn't take magic to see the troubled expression in his eyes. I suppose I should have been alarmed, or at least concerned, but I chose to believe that Remus was being overly cautious. After all, he'd put me off earlier in order to tell me about the wizard business, and the evening had turned out to be the most incredible of my life. I was the self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, I reminded myself, and if tonight didn't qualify as the all-time high, I don't know what would.

"Okay. Shoot!" I snuggled my head in the warm curve of his neck and waited for the next revelation. Instead, Remus gently disentangled himself from my embrace.

"Not tonight, dear heart," he murmured, removing my hands from around his waist and holding them firmly. "I want you to meet the people I work with and---" He broke off, frowning. "---and see what I'm about," he finished, lamely.

Something told me that he would not be dissuaded. 

"I love you, you know," I said softly.

Remus placed a hand against the curve of my cheek and smiled. "I love you, too." 

"I'll walk you to the door," I said, but he held me fast. 

"Not necessary. I don't need the door, remember?"

"Oh."

A few more kisses, and then Remus Lupin disappeared: Disapparated, as he called it. I lay in bed that night, mulling over the events of the evening before sleep overtook me and wondered: what could be more unbelievable than what he'd already told me? 


	5. Chapter 4: Discovery

**__**

Chapter 4: Discovery

Three nights later, we were on our way to meet Remus' friends. Their meeting place, I discovered, was not in one of the nicer parts of London. The large townhouses we passed had evidently been impressive at one time, but as often happens, neighborhoods wax and wane. Some keep up with the times; this one definitely had not.

"Who is it that lives here?" I asked. The further we walked, the more dilapidated the once grand houses appeared. 

"No one now," Remus said, his voice tinged with regret. "You remember me telling you about my friend Sirius?"

Of course. Sirius Black, Remus' friend since school days, had died several weeks ago; Remus had mentioned it to me during our tea the day we met at King's Cross. I nodded.

"This was his family home. Our group is using it as a sort of headquarters."

"What's the name of your group? I know you said it had to do with self-defense…"

Remus sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "Kailin, this is the part that's going to sound rather like a bad Muggle television show. There's this---erm---evil wizard..."

I started to laugh, but stopped at the all-too-serious expression on his face. Remus glanced around to make sure we were well out of earshot of the nearby houses, and told me how a boy named Tom Riddle had grown up to become evil personified, going by the name of Lord Voldemort. How he'd been defeated 15 years ago by another boy named Harry Potter. How, bit by bit, Voldemort was regaining power, supporters, and human form. How the resistance group, the Order of the Phoenix, was trying to prevent Voldemort's takeover. How they were in the midst of what amounted to a wizarding war. 

"A war!" I echoed, realizing for the first time that Remus' notion of self-defense wasn't about going for the crotch or the eyeball.

"A dangerous war." Remus studied me intently, his brown eyes searching out my blue ones. "You need to know that, Kailin. There's a very real possibility that sometime in the near future I could be killed, just like Sirius."

My mouth went dry. "You never mentioned that he was killed. You only said he died. He was killed by Voldemort?"

The pain at remembering was plain to see. "Voldemort doesn't waste his time on people like us. Sirius was killed by a stinking Death Eater---that's what Voldemort's supporters are called."

_Death Eater._ Even the name sounded hideous.

"There's also," Remus continued grimly, "the probability that if I am attacked at a time when you and I are together, you will be killed as well."

I felt the blood leave my face. But Remus wasn't finished yet.

"You may think this is an internal wizarding affair that has nothing to do with Muggles. The truth is that dark wizards and their followers have always raped, tortured and killed Muggles just for the sport of it, even Muggles with absolutely no connection to the wizarding world. And not just on a small scale, either. Back during the Second World War, there was a dark wizard in Germany named Grindelwald, who's believed to have been in league with Adolph Hitler, and I don't need to tell you about all the atrocities that were involved with that. Even some of the crimes you've seen reported in your news through the years are actually the work of dark wizards."

A chill literally raced up and down my spine. No wonder Remus had been so reluctant to plunge me into a romance. And now he was giving me the space to back away if that was what I wanted. 

What did I want? Reason told me that it was too early to turn tail and run. Right now, there was a brilliant summer sunset in progress and the warm air was thick with the smell of life. The idea that some dark wizard---or his followers---would run right up now and kill us seemed as likely as winning the lottery. On the other hand, this new world I'd glimpsed, the one where skillets flew and chairs hovered and Goblins ran banks, was still foreign to me. If Remus Lupin could fly on a broom, was it so hard to believe that the rest could happen?

"What are you thinking?" Remus' voice cut into my thoughts.

"I'm thinking this is…" I broke off, hunting for words, but could find none to suit me. "I don't know. I'm tired of saying that everything's incredible. I think I need a whole new vocabulary. It's just more than I could have ever imagined."

"Kailin…" Remus stopped, took my hands in his. "I love you. I never dreamed I'd find anyone like you. But if you want out of this relationship at any time, just say the word. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you. I've already lost my best friend. I don't want to lose you, too." 

"Do you want me to go?" I asked quietly. As far as I was concerned, I was a big girl and able to take care of myself---in the Muggle world, at least.

"No, of course not. But if I were in your shoes, I'd seriously consider turning and running as fast as I could. And I wouldn't blame you if you did."

I smiled at him, squeezed his hands in return. "We Yanks are a pretty tough lot. We don't scare easily."

"You haven't seen it yet," Remus said softly. "You haven't seen anything yet."

"I'm not leaving," I repeated. "And all that's happening tonight is that I'm meeting some of your friends. But if it ever seems that I'm in over my head, I swear I'll back away---but only under one condition."

"What?" 

"That you try _not_ to get yourself killed. I'm planning on having a nice, long relationship with you, whether you like it or not."

Remus grinned, pulled me to him in a fierce hug.

We walked another block or so, then turned onto a street called Grimmauld Place. It turned out that our destination---Number Twelve---was warded in the same way as the Leaky Cauldron. One moment I was looking from Number Eleven to Number Thirteen, but as soon as Remus took my hand, Number Twelve appeared between them. He led the way up the steps, held a cautionary finger to his lips, and knocked.

The door was opened by a plump, beaming red haired woman. "Come in, come in," she said in hushed tones. 

Remus motioned for me to enter first, and I did so. The entry hall was large and dimly lit by gaslights, giving it a sad, neglected feeling. I glanced around. The stairs were in front of me, great dark, yawning chasms leading to upper and lower levels. The wall to my left was covered with the ugliest, heaviest velvet drapes I've ever seen, and all I could think was that someone must truly hate daylight to block it so viciously. All in all, the hall looked like it should have been swathed in cobwebs, though it was apparently clean. One thing I had learned through the years about large houses: they're seldom truly clean, unless you have full time help; about the time you finish cleaning, the dust bunnies have already regenerated and it's time to start all over again. 

"You must be Kailin," the woman continued effusively. "Goodness, Remus, you didn't mention that she was so pretty."

"I believe the word I used was 'beautiful', Molly, not pretty." Remus winked at me.

"I'm Molly Weasley," the woman said, reaching out to shake my hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Molly. I'm Kailin Curtis," I said, deciding at once that Molly Weasley seemed very normal and very nice. "I hope I'm not too much of a distraction this evening. I don't want to disturb your meeting."

"Sometimes distractions can be a good thing." She glanced pointedly at Remus, who was busy relocking the front door. "Come downstairs, the two of you. We're just having a bit of a snack before the meeting starts."

I watched Molly head purposefully down the darkly lit stairs and wondered if witches and wizards were born with good night vision. Remus sensed my hesitation and pulled his wand out of his pants pocket.

_"Lumos,"_ he muttered, and light spilled from the tip of his wand, illuminating the way.

At the foot of the stairs, Molly threw open a door to a brightly lit kitchen, and I breathed a small sigh of relief that I'd be able to see my hand in front of my face again. More than a dozen pairs of eyes looked up to eye me curiously, reminding me of our entrance into the Leaky Cauldron three nights ago. The majority of the eyes, I noted, seemed to belong to redheads.

"Everyone," she called, "Remus is here, and this is his friend, Kailin Curtis. Remus, you make the introductions, why don't you? I need to refill some of these dishes…"

Molly bustled off, obviously appalled that the snack bowls had been emptied of their contents. Remus took me by the hand and led me around the table.

"This is Arthur Weasley, Molly's husband…. He works at the Ministry. Their son Bill…. Fred and George, they're twins, as you can see…. Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley…. I think I'm finally done with Weasleys," he joked, "although you can never be too sure. Hermione Granger, Harry Potter…. Arabella Figg….. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, they're Aurors…. Sorry, about that, Tonks. Don't ever call her Nymphadora, Kailin, unless you want to be hexed from here till Tuesday and back… Mad-Eye---sorry, _Alastor_ Moody…. Hestia Jones…"

My head swam with names and faces. What were Aurors, I wondered, and where had I heard the name Harry Potter before? And were these people relying on _children_ as part of their defense league?

There was a faint knock at the front door. One of the Weasleys got up to answer it since Molly was busy refilling snack bowls. There were footsteps on the stairs, then more people joined the group: a stern-looking, older woman in a tall pointed hat and a scowling dark-haired man dressed in black. Remus introduced the two of them as teachers from Hogwarts, the wizarding school. Both of them regarded me with some degree of disdain, the dark-haired man being the worst: he stopped just short of sneering at me. Remus quickly ushered me back to where the Weasley father was waving and pointing to an empty seat. 

"Remus! Let Kailin sit here. I want to talk to her."

Remus grinned and pushed me gently in that direction, but not before whispering a warning in my ear. And so I found myself seated next to Arthur Weasley and discovered in the space of thirty seconds that Remus had been correct: the man began plying me with all sorts of questions about Muggles. Someone shoved a butter beer in my hand and I tried to take sips of it between explaining about computers, compact discs and DVD's. Technology isn't really my strong suit; I'm satisfied just knowing that the things work, and I leave the details up to larger brains than mine. But then someone asked what field I was in, and when I replied that I was in medicine, Arthur Weasley positively glowed with delight.

"Really! I was hospitalized last Christmas for a short spell, and my healer was quite open-minded about alternative therapies such as Muggle medicine. We tried stitches on my wound, but they apparently don't work well on magical injuries…"

I stared gracelessly at him, contemplating the fact that these people viewed modern medicine as an _alternative therapy._ It stoked my curiosity, and I wanted to know just what sort of medicine these people practiced, and if it worked, why couldn't it be available to the rest of the world? But before I could turn the tables and start asking Arthur questions, there was a sudden stirring and the room quieted. 

Another wizard had entered the room, an elderly man clad in ornate and richly bedecked robes. The power just seemed to _ooze_ from him, and I knew at once that now that this man was here, the meeting would begin. Sure enough, Molly Weasley hopped to her feet and announced in no uncertain terms that the meeting was starting and those who didn't belong here needed to go. Two of the redheads stood, as did the Potter boy and the curly-haired girl next to him. I rose as well. Remus beckoned to the curly-haired girl.

"Hermione, would you take Kailin up to the front parlor?" 

"Of course, Professor." 

Remus squeezed my shoulder. "See you after the meeting," he said, smiling.

I followed the girl up two flights of stairs to a sitting room that felt every bit as stuffy and abandoned as the rest of the house. The other teens, I noticed, were heading on up to the next floor. One of them called to her.

"You coming, Hermione?"

"I'll be right there. Ginny, could you bring some magazines down for Kailin? There's absolutely nothing to do down here except read the Black family tree, and I don't think she's interested in that." Hermione turned back to me, her eyes shining conspiratorially. "I just wanted to say that we all think it's wonderful---you and Professor Lupin, that is. He's such a nice man, and he deserves some happiness."  


I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. "He is nice," I said, smiling in return. "But why do you still call him 'Professor Lupin'? He's not your teacher anymore."

"Force of habit, I suppose. He was absolutely one of the best teachers we ever had. Knows a ton about defense against the dark arts. It's just such a shame…" Hermione's voice trailed off, leaving me wondering what was such a shame. "Anyway, I'm sure this must all be quite confusing for you. I know it would have been for me. My parents are Muggles, and I had absolutely no idea about the wizarding world until I got my Hogwarts letter."

"How do your parents feel about you being involved in this?" I asked, taking a seat on a threadbare sofa. 

"In the wizarding world, you mean? They want me to do my best and make the most of my potential and all that, although I'm sure they wish I would have chosen a regular Muggle occupation." 

"But what about this war against Voldemort? They're not worried?" It was hard to imagine any parent not being frantic with all that was apparently going on.

"Well, we're not allowed to be part of the Order yet. And I haven't really told them much about the war, to be honest. I wouldn't want them to worry. Oh, good!"

The red-haired Weasley girl had run into the room, her arms laden with magazines. "Here you are, then. Hope you find something you like."

I took the magazines from her. The girls disappeared back up the stairs and I settled in with my reading material. The magazines, I found, were the wizarding equivalent of Muggle teen fashion publications. Like their Muggle counterparts, they devoted countless pages to clothes, makeup, and how to attract boys. Some things, I decided, were universal issues for teens everywhere. It was a comforting thought in this odd place. I'd gone through two magazines and was just starting to read an advice column in a third (_"I really like my boyfriend, but his broom is an absolute embarrassment when we go out on a date_. _What should I do?"_ ) when Hermione came back in. 

"How's it going?" she asked brightly. 

"Fine. These magazines are a lot like their Muggle counterparts, aren't they?"

"I suppose. I don't read the things myself. They're Ginny's."

I laughed at the look of outright disgust on Hermione's face. "What do you read?" I asked.

"I like historical novels, although I really don't have much time to read for pleasure. We've just finished O.W.L.'s, and next year it's N.E.W.T.'s, so I spend most of my time studying."

I assumed that Owls and Newts were tests of some sort. It was clear to see where Hermione's priorities lie. "What do you hope to do when you finish at Hogwarts?" 

"I'd like to do something that'll really make a difference. The wizarding world is _so _far behind the Muggle world when it comes to social justice issues. But I'll have to go to Muggle university for that, I'm afraid. None of the wizarding ones in Britain have a decent program of that sort."

Hermione was a girl of strong convictions, it seemed. "Social justice issues? Like what?" 

"Well, there's a terrible amount of prejudice among wizards, you see. There's all that pureblood business, of course. And the way they treat other magical creatures is absolutely horrible. You would think that wizards, being in the minority in the world, would stick together, but they seem bent on divisiveness. Year before last I tried to form an organization to support house elf rights, and the way people reacted, you'd think I had asked them to break their wands in two or something…"

I was feeling pleasantly warm and comfortable by this point in the evening, relaxed by the butterbeer and bored by the magazines to the point where I was quite drowsy. Hermione was continuing her diatribe, and since my knowledge of the wizarding world was limited to my experiences of the past two weeks, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention. It was when she said "Take Professor Lupin, for example", that I sat up straighter and listened more attentively.

"…ridiculous that a man that capable and talented is discriminated against simply because he's a werewolf. It's a disgrace that---"

Exactly what was a disgrace, I didn't catch. Hermione's mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear her: there was a strange roaring in my ears that began with the word 'werewolf'. Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Finally, it appeared to dawn on Hermione that I was no longer paying attention to her.

"Kailin? Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry." My voice didn't sound like my own. "You said---_werewolf_?"

"Of course." Hermione frowned, then her eyes grew huge and her face contorted into a stricken expression. "Oh, God! You didn't know?" she gasped.

_Werewolf. _ I tried to speak, but no sound emerged. I tried to inhale, but my diaphragm was failing to cooperate. The man I loved, Remus Lupin. _Werewolf._

I found myself climbing to my feet, then moving toward the doorway. Behind me, Hermione was asking in a squeaky voice if I was all right. All right? Of course I wasn't all right. I had to get to Remus and demand an explanation. The hell with their meeting…

And then I was stumbling down the dark stairway toward the entrance hall. When I came to the last two steps, however, I misjudged them in the dim light and found myself sprawling toward the floor. I landed flat on my face, hitting my forehead with a loud thump. I groaned aloud and climbed up to all fours. At once the ugly velvet curtains I'd seen upon our arrival sprang open and a screeching female voice filled the hall.

_"Filthy traitors! Think you can stop the Dark Lord! Get out of my house, you vermin, you scum,---"_

I staggered to my feet and tried to focus my eyes on the source of the noise. A painting was behind the drapes, not a window. And the subject of that painting, a dour, scowling woman in black was standing with her arms akimbo. She caught sight of me, let out a blood-curdling shriek, and pointed a bony finger at me. 

_"Muggle! A Muggle! Get out of my house you filth, you vermin! You are not worthy to set foot in this house!"_

Prior to three days ago, the sight of a moving, talking painting would have shocked me. At the present time, however, I was beyond the ability to be shocked. I stumbled backwards several paces; already off-balance, I found myself tumbling sideways into a large hall table topped with a marble slab. My head struck the edge of the marble and another pain seared through my head.

Hope it's not a head wound, or I'll bleed like a stuck pig, I thought briefly. My last conscious thought was that the cool floor felt very, very good.


	6. Chapter 5: The Truth Comes Out

**__**

Chapter 5: The Truth Comes Out

I heard running footsteps, urgent voices. Strong hands lifted me, and I wanted to protest that I liked the cool floor just fine, thank you; it felt quite good on my aching head. Then something cold was pressed against my forehead and I reluctantly opened my eyes. I was stretched out on the couch in the sitting room, and Molly Weasley was perched beside me.

"There now, that feels better, doesn't it?"

The gaslight that had seemed dim before now acted like searchlights trained directly on my face, and I grimaced. I reached up to probe at my scalp and found two good-sized goose eggs from the tumbles I had taken.

"The painting was screaming at me," I mumbled.

Molly clucked her tongue sympathetically. "That was Mrs. Black, dear. She really doesn't like us much."

I heard someone sniff loudly from the other side of the room, and I painfully turned my head to check out the source. Hermione was standing by the door, wringing her hands and looking tearful. Remus stood next to her, arms crossed and an anxious expression on his face. 

Remus. 

At once I remembered why I had my double headache, and my stomach churned in response. I shut my eyes once more. "Could Remus and I be alone, please?"

"Of course." Molly rose from the sofa. "Meanwhile, I'll get you something for the pain."

I heard footsteps heading out into the hall, accompanied by Molly's remonstrations and Hermione's sniffles. Remus came over to take her place. I struggled to sit up.

"No, no," he objected, trying to push me back down. "You should lie down, Kailin."

"I don't want to lie down. I want to sit up." I managed to get upright, and the cold cloth on my forehead plopped into my lap. It vaguely registered that the ice-cold cloth was not wet in the least, and I supposed there was some sort of freezing charm witches used to make it that way. The difference between the Muggle world and the wizarding world, I realized, was not just a chasm: it was an abyss.

We sat regarding each, both our faces masks of misery. 

"I'm so sorry…" Remus' voice, when he spoke, was hoarse. "I was going to tell you after the meeting tonight. I never intended for you to find out this way."

"You're a werewolf," I stated calmly. Part of me was praying that I had just awoken from a nightmare, while the part that knew better waited for the confirmation that Hermione had been correct.

Remus nodded. My stomach roiled again.

"Tell me what this means," I said, forcing myself to take a steadying breath.

He hesitated. "It means that once a month, when the moon is full, I transform into a wolf. I was bitten when I was only seven, you see. My parents had rented a house in the country one summer, I wandered off into the woods on the night of the full moon and was bitten. There's no cure, although since the advent of the Wolfsbane Potion, I can transform but not hurt anyone. It's not like the old days. I don't feel the---" Remus paused and then forced out two words as though it was the most painful thing he'd ever said: "---the bloodlust."

_Bloodlust._ I felt completely numb inside now. Remus swallowed hard and continued.

"It also means that I'm virtually a pauper. There's a law that makes it nearly impossible for me to find work. No one will hire me. My teaching stint at Hogwarts was one of the few real jobs I've ever had, and that ended because word of my condition got out. By wizarding standards, I'm considered to be a half-breed. I live in a room in Ministry-supported welfare housing, and every month, I get a Ministry dole. In short, I'm nothing, Kailin."

I thought of Hermione's righteous anger. Tears filled my eyes and spilled over onto my cheeks.

"I'm so sorry!" Remus repeated, shaking his head and staring at the floor. "I should never have allowed things to progress this far. It was silly to think that I could have something as normal as a love life. I just thought if I told you about all this gradually, you might accept it somehow."

If there's anything worse than two sad people, it's two sad people who need to comfort each other and don't know how. "Would you hold me?" I asked timidly. "I---I could really use a hug right now…"

Remus looked surprised, as though he'd expected me to recoil at his touch. Then he enfolded me into his arms and buried his face in my hair, stroking it gently. "Kailin…" he whispered in a choked whisper. "God, Kailin, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.…."

Sobbing was a bad idea, I discovered: it made my head throb harder than ever. I settled for letting the tears stream quietly and clinging to Remus as hard as I could. We sat that way for several minutes, until Molly Weasley returned and knocked softly on the doorframe. I sat back and swiped at my cheeks; I couldn't help but notice that Remus was doing the same thing. 

"I found a Soothing Potion for you, Kailin," she said, looking terribly apologetic for interrupting us. "This'll put your headache to rights."

I eyed the glass she held and wondered what it would do to my heaving stomach. It wasn't likely, I thought, that potions came in cherry or grape flavors; if it tasted truly nasty, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it down or keep it down. "Thank you," I said, taking the glass from her and sipping it cautiously. Neither cherry, nor grape, nor nasty, I discovered: more of a sweet herbal essence of some sort that wasn't too bad. I downed the rest of it in three gulps. Remarkably, my stomach was quelled immediately, and the headache began to change from throbbing pain to dull ache.

"I've ruined your meeting, haven't I?" I muttered.

"Not at all," said Molly. "They're still going strong downstairs."

"Oh." I glanced at Remus. "You should probably get back then."

"Absolutely not," he said firmly. "I'm seeing you home first. I'm sure someone will fill me in later."

We left Twelve Grimmauld Place a few minutes later, both of us quiet and subdued. Once we'd left the street behind, Remus wasted no time in Apparating us to my flat. 

"Are you all right?" he wanted to know.

"In what way?" I joked feebly. "Physically, mentally, emotionally? Take your pick."

"Well, I know you don't like Apparating much, and I didn't know if it would make your headache worse."

He was right. Every time we'd Apparated somewhere, it made me feel as if I'd slammed into a brick wall. But my head didn't feel any worse than it had when we left Number Twelve, so that was a good sign.

"I'm all right, I think. That potion Molly gave me seems to have helped a lot. As for the rest of me…" My voice trailed off. "I don't know. I have a lot to think about, don't I?"

Remus was studying his feet. "Tell me what you want, Kailin. I'll leave right now and never come back if that's what you want me to do. Or I'll give you a day or a month or a year to think about it. Just don't lead me on. Don't tell me everything's grand when it's not. I'm not naïve." He looked up, a sickly smile on his face. "I'm quite used to rejection, actually. I suppose I've learned to thrive on it."

I was horrified. "Don't be ridiculous," I said. "I wouldn't---"

"I know," he interrupted, "you wouldn't _dream_ of treating me that way. I've heard that far too many times."

I fell silent, aware that I was quite out of my depth here. Remus shoved his hands into his pockets. I knew that gesture by now. It meant that his life was spiraling out of control and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Look," he said quietly, "the smart thing to do would be for you to go back to the States and forget about me. You deserve a---a stockbroker or a barrister or something and a fine big home in the suburbs. I can give you nothing, Kailin. Nothing."

I leaned wearily against the back of my sofa, a lump the size of Texas in my throat. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but I couldn't play the hopeless romantic anymore. Any innocence I'd had in that regard was now dead and gone. 

"You can give me some time," I ventured.

"All right. Tell me how long."

"A week, I guess." It would be the longest we'd gone without seeing each other. "I don't know how long it takes to decide about something like this. I've never had to do it before."

"Of course. I'll---be back in touch with you a week from today, then."

He walked several paces away: I could tell he was getting ready to Apparate. "Remus…"

"Hmm?"

"Don't be too angry with Hermione. She honestly had no idea."

"I know."

"And Remus…"

He waited.

"I still love you," I said.

"That's good," he said hoarsely. "Because I still love you, too."

****

I suppose I had seen way too many horror movies in my youth. My dreams were peppered with visions of wolf men and other assorted creatures, and I spent a restless night in what seemed an endless cycle of bad dreams and drowsy semi-awareness. When I awoke the next morning, my throat hurt, my whole body ached, and my nose was running like a sieve. On top of my other woes, I'd managed to snag a summer cold, one of my least favorite things in the whole world. I'm not normally a person who likes to linger in bed even with a cold, but on this day I couldn't find the energy to crawl out from under the covers. 

Then there was the matter of the two-ton weight that seemed to be crushing my heart, a discomfort totally unrelated to the virus running rampant in my sinuses. Another really good cry would have helped, but I had already cried buckets and to continue would have swollen my nasal passages to the point where I'd be unable to breathe at all. I settled for staring listlessly out the window and trying to think---or not think---about the whole situation. I'd been staring at the mockingly bright sunshine outside for the better part of an hour when there was a knock at my door.

I found my robe and struggled into it, finally making it to the front door by the third time the visitor knocked. Somewhere between the bed and the door, I'd remembered Remus' warning about Death Eaters and me being a target just by my association with him, so I cautiously opened the door just a crack. Not that I would have had a clue what to do if it _had _been a dark wizard, of course---unless I could have run them off with a good fit of sneezing my germs on them. As it turned out, it was not a dark wizard at all, but Molly Weasley.

"Molly! Good morning," I said, trying to sound as though nothing in the world was wrong. It was useless; my red nose and watery eyes were a dead giveaway. "Please, come in."

"Remus told me where you lived. Thought I'd pop round to see how your head was doing and bring you some more Soothing Potion," she said cheerfully, then the smile on her face wavered. "Oh, dear. You have a beastly cold as well, don't you? I'll need to run back for some Pepper-Up Potion. Do you mind if I just Apparate back? No? Fine, I'll be right back." 

And she vanished with a pop, leaving me staring open-mouthed at the door and wondering if Pepper-Up Potion was as effective as last night's Soothing Potion. If so, I hoped she'd return with a gallon jug of the stuff. I closed the door and went to wait on the sofa, my box of tissues close at hand. Several minutes later, there was a small pop behind me: Molly had returned. 

"Here we go. Do you have a glass?'

Caught in mid-sneeze, I motioned in the direction of the kitchen with one hand and grabbed for the Kleenex box with the other. I could hear Molly rummaging through my cabinets while I tried to find some skin around my nose that wasn't already sore to the touch.

"Have you heard from Remus today?" she called.

"No. We agreed not to see each other for a week while I sort through everything."

"That's a good idea. You need a little space now and then. I just wondered if he has the cold, too." 

I didn't say anything. If Remus transformed at a time when he had a cold in his human form, did that mean the wolf did also? And what did wolves do when their noses ran? 

Molly reappeared, a coffee cup in her hands. "This'll do," she said, and poured bits of both potions into it. Faint wisps of steam rose from the cup, steam I was quite sure had nothing to do with the temperature of the liquid. Feeling too miserable to care if the stuff ate holes in my esophagus, I drank it as quickly as I could. Almost immediately, it felt like small bursts of flame were shooting throughout various parts of my body. The only thing I could compare it to was the time that I had adventurously downed a shot of whiskey in one gulp---although I soon realized that I felt a heck of a lot better now than I had on that occasion.

"That's the ticket!" she cried, and I wondered from the approving tone in her voice if my skin was turning some horrific shade of red. "Have you had anything to eat today?"

"Well, no,---"

"Then let me make you a spot of tea."

"You're don't have to do that," I protested. "You're my guest."

"Don't be silly. I'm not a guest, you didn't invite me, now did you? I'll make the tea, and you lean back against that lovely fat pillow and relax."

Molly disappeared into the kitchen again, and soon I heard the sound of water running into my teakettle. "Arthur's fascinated by Muggle technology, you know, so I've picked up quite a bit of information from him. Your heating thing, here: do I turn the whatsit to the left or right? And about how far?"

I had visions of the flat going up in flames; I hoped my landlord carried ample insurance.

"To the right, and about halfway."

"Right," she said happily. A few moments later, she reappeared. "Takes a while this way, doesn't it?"

I sneezed in response. Meanwhile, Molly was making herself at home on the sofa, undaunted by the number of used Kleenexes that were scattered about. I remembered the number of red-haired children at Grimmauld Place the previous evening, and thought that only a mother could disregard germ-ridden clutter so effectively.

"Tell me about yourself, Kailin. Remus didn't give us a lot of information. Men can be so tight-lipped, can't they?"

My sore throat wasn't conducive to spending much time talking. I gave her a condensed version of my life and how I happened to be in Britain, then turned the tables on her. Molly, as I had guessed, needed little encouragement to talk. She told me how she and Arthur had met at Hogwarts; about the Weasley children I hadn't met last night and the educational and professional achievements of all of them, about how the twins had chosen another path entirely and she still wasn't convinced they would do well by it; and by the time she was describing the home she referred to as The Burrow, the teakettle was whistling its readiness.

We were sipping our tea and munching on the biscuits Molly had found lurking in my pantry when she finally got around to what was probably the main purpose of her visit. 

"About Remus, Kailin…"

We'd skirted the issue thus far. Her visit had provided enough distraction that my emotional distress had faded a bit, and I wasn't eager to jump back into the fray. To my relief, Molly seemed to sense this.

"…I know you are struggling with everything you've learned about him,---"

"---Not just him," I assured her. "About your world in general."

"Of course. That's as it should be. It wouldn't be normal if you weren't totally shocked or appalled or something. It's just that….well… Remus Lupin is one of the finest people I know," Molly said, her usually lively eyes now quiet and hopeful. "If you decide that you can't accept him as he is, please let him down kindly. He's lived a terribly hard life, and kindness is the very least he deserves."

I nodded, unable to speak because those blasted tears were back, welling up so suddenly and spilling over so rapidly that I was caught completely unawares. My defenses weren't just down, I realized, they were completely missing in action. Mother hen Molly pulled me into her arms and cradled me like one of her redheaded chicks.

"He's the most wonderful man I've ever known," I sputtered between sobs. "I don't know what to do, Molly!"

"Of course you don't," she said soothingly. "Things will sort themselves out, Kailin. You wait and see."

There are some people you can know for years and yet they still feel like virtual strangers. Then there are those, and Molly Weasley is one, whom you can know for less than twenty-four hours and they feel like family. So I wasn't surprised at all when she told me to pack a bag because she was taking me back to The Burrow for a rest. I didn't have the heart to say no; it was just easier to do it. 

And so I made certain that the stove burners were off, threw some things in my backpack, and we Disapparated.


	7. Chapter 6: At the Burrow

**__**

Chapter 6: At The Burrow

By the time Molly bustled me up two flights of stairs to the small bedroom where I'd be staying, it became clear to me where the Burrow had gotten its name. Additions had been made to the house in a rather pell-mell fashion, presumably as more and more children arrived, and the end result reminded me of a patchwork quilt. With a quilt, however, there was usually a pattern---and there was virtually no rhyme or reason to this floor plan. It would be enough to drive an architect to drink, not to mention the poor soul in charge of issuing building permits. Whether the wizarding world bothered with such things, I didn't know. The house in Grimmauld Place, despite the obvious neglect and disrepair, was to all appearances normal in most respects. This must be Weasley unorthodoxy at its finest.

"Here you go," Molly announced, crossing to the bedroom window and throwing it wide open. "You'll be quite comfortable in here, I think."

"I'm not putting anybody out, am I?"

"Not at all. This is Percy's room."

"Percy?" I repeated. I tried to remember if she had mentioned a Percy back at my flat. 

"Our third son," she said, and I couldn't help but notice that the light had gone from her eyes. "He works for the Ministry and has a place of his own in London. We had a bit of a falling out last year over You-Know-Who, and we've not quite settled the issue yet."

"Oh," I said, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring anything up."

"Nonsense. You couldn't know, of course, and anyway, I'm quite sure he'll be coming to his senses now that it's confirmed that You-Know-Who is back. Well, I pointed out the bath on the way up, and you should be all set. Lunch will be around noon or so. Oh, and I'll try to keep the racket down so you can get some rest."

I nodded gratefully. She had already told me that I could expect to see the four Weasley children from the night before, as well as their friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Molly was apparently one of those women who invited chaos and then thrived in it. When she closed the door behind her, I dropped my bag to the floor and walked to the window to inspect the view. I could see the broad sweep of the back yard---more a field, actually---and an orchard beyond. Where in the world were we? When Molly had talked about her home, I had assumed that it was in London: after all, I'd met her at Grimmauld Place, she'd visited me at my flat, and both were in London. This was definitely country, not city.

I went to the bed and perched on the side, trying out the mattress: it didn't seem too hard or too soft, thank goodness---not that I particularly cared at the moment. I was bone-weary, both physically and emotionally, and I could probably sleep standing if I had to. The small room, cramped though it might be, was a homey and cheerful respite from my flat, where thoughts of Remus assaulted me from every corner. Yes, this was a good idea, getting away from it all. I turned down the bedcovers, shed the clothes I had thrown on for the sake of Apparating from there to here, and crawled in. 

The Pepper-Up Potion, whatever it was, definitely had something going for it. For the most part, I could breathe and go without a Kleenex for five minutes at a stretch. The warm air wafting in, along with the droning of a bee in the honeysuckle outside my window, lulled me into blackness and I slept.

I was awakened sometime later by a gentle tapping on the door. I opened my eyes blearily to find Molly coming through the door with a tray.

"I brought you some broth and tea," she said in a hushed voice. "And I've told everyone that you're ill and need rest and quiet."

I wanted to protest that it was only a cold, that she needn't marshal the household into enforced silence on my account, but I was still drowsy. Besides, I suspected that Molly wielded untold power in her home, and its inhabitants were probably used to toeing the line. And so I gratefully accepted the tray, sipped its contents and then, amazed that I could still be sleepy, dove under the comforter and back into the darkness. 

****

By the next morning, I began to believe that I would live. I found some bath linens on the chair just inside the door and decided that a hot shower would revive me further. I had just concluded that wizarding bathrooms were no different from Muggle bathrooms when the lavatory mirror told me that my nose was too red and I should really take more Pepper-Up Potion. By this time, I was becoming accustomed to such wizarding surprises. I managed to not squeal in shock and merely stuck my tongue out at my image. I dressed quickly and went downstairs, where I found a sea of red hair at the kitchen table.

"Good morning!" Molly beamed at me. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better," I said truthfully. "I can't believe I slept so much."

"You needed it. How's the nose?"

"Your bathroom mirror told me it was too red."

"Silly thing. I should have warned you."

"That's not so bad," the girl I recognized as Ginny Weasley volunteered. "You haven't lived until it laughs at you when you're trying out a new hairstyle."

"Sit, Kailin," Molly urged. "Let me get you some breakfast. What do you prefer? Eggs? Sausages? Oatmeal?"

I requested scrambled eggs and toast, then gratefully accepted the coffee Molly passed to me. The conversation moved on to the upcoming school year at Hogwarts, prompting the twins Fred and George to boast that their days of higher education behind them, now that they were entrepreneurs. There was much speculation about who would be the new teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Nobody, Ron Weasley told me, had been as good at the job as Remus; at the mention of his name, I felt a pang of anxiety, reminding why I was here in the first place. Hermione Granger, I noticed, looked suddenly guilty. I made a mental note to reassure her that I didn't blame her for the fiasco at Grimmauld Place.

After breakfast, the twins announced that they needed to Apparate to their shop. Everyone else wandered off to whatever activity they'd planned for a summer's day, leaving me alone with Molly. 

"Is it always like this?" I asked when dead silence had descended upon the house.

"Lord love you, dear, you're not used to being around a lot of children, are you?" Molly chuckled.

"Well, no."

"I'm used to it. I tell you, Kailin, during the school year, the quiet is nearly unbearable."

"They're all very well behaved, aren't they?" I commented.

"That they are. Good kids, the lot of them."

"Molly, how long have you known Remus?"

She considered the question. "Not that long, actually. Only about a year now, ever since Dumbledore reactivated the---well, the group you met last night. And of course the children had him at Hogwarts a couple of years ago."

"Have you ever seen him when he's---uhm---I mean, when he---" I broke off, unsure what word I was looking for.

"Transforms?" Molly finished gently. I nodded, but she was already shaking her head. "No. He never lets anyone see. He locks himself into his room before it happens. Even after he regains human form, he's terribly exhausted and has to sleep it off for a day or so. It's evidently quite painful, even with the Wolfsbane potion to keep him from going mad."

Going mad. I nearly winced aloud. "What Hermione said last night about all the prejudice: it's true? He can't get a job just because he's a werewolf?"

Molly snorted in disgust as she rose to her feet and went for the coffeepot. "Prejudice is the wizarding world's dirty little secret. I can understand why some wizards might feel superior to Muggles simply because we can _do _magic. But the nonsense about purity of race is ridiculous. A human being is a human being, whether magic or Muggle. And as for superiority over other magical creatures… Well, some wizards have lorded it over certain creatures for far too long, and one of these days, it's going to backfire in their faces. Charlie, our second son, works with dragons in Romania, and let me tell you---"

"_Dragons!"_ I choked violently on the coffee I'd just sipped, to the point where Molly had to pound me on the back. "Dragons are _real_?" I finally managed to gasp.

"Yes."

"In Romania?"

"Oh, not just in Romania. They're quite common in most of Europe," Molly said matter-of-factly. 

My response was a monumental sneeze. I found my Kleenex just in time. "Common in most of Europe," I echoed weakly after I'd blown my nose. "Dragons are real. Werewolves are real. Magic is real. Vampires?"

"Real, although all those Muggle movies about them are preposterous for the most part."

"How on earth do you keep all this hidden?"

"It's a full time job, of course. I don't know if Remus mentioned it to you, but there's an entire department at the Ministry that's responsible for Muggle memory modification."

"He did," I said, thinking of the night in Diagon Alley. Surely, I thought, it would be simpler just to let the truth be known, but then I remembered Remus' comment about the fate of minority groups everywhere. Evidently damage control was easier than facing the consequences. I pondered that while Molly refilled my coffee cup. "Molly," I said softly, "what would you do if you were in my shoes?"

"Go back to bed for a while," she said briskly.

I laughed. "You know what I mean. About Remus."

"Oh, no you don't," she objected, smiling broadly. "You won't trick me into _that_."

"But this is all so complex. I have absolutely nothing to use as a frame of reference."

Molly replaced the coffeepot on the stove. "Well, you have a lot of time on your hands and we have all sorts of textbooks lying around from the children's classes. You can spend the week reading up on our world. Come to think of it, Hermione would be an excellent resource. Right little bookworm, that one. If you have a question that you can't find the answer to, I'd bet a pile of galleons that she could not only steer you to the right book, she'd point out the chapter and page and then quote the line itself. And she'd do it from a Muggle perspective, since she was raised Muggle."

Which brought up another issue. Molly's invitation to the Burrow hadn't specified any particular length of stay. "I'm really grateful for your hospitality, but I don't quite know how to put this: how long did you intend for me to stay?"

Molly Weasley just chuckled in response. 

"As long as it takes."

*****

I flopped onto my bed with an armful of books: heavy books that looked as though they'd come off the printing press in another century instead of the last ten years. Hadn't wizards ever heard of paperbacks? After fluffing up the pillows and making sure my box of Kleenex was close at hand, I chose _A History of Magic _and settled down to read. What I found boggled my mind: another world happily coexisted with the one I knew, and the close brushes and narrow misses with each other had fostered the fables and fairy tales I'd known since childhood. From there I moved to _Distinguished Witches and Wizards of the Twentieth Century_, and found a few names there that I recognized: Dumbledore, Voldemort, Harry Potter. A quite humorous read was _Understanding the Muggle World_, apparently the primer for a class in Muggle culture for young wizards. Some things that I took for granted---which included about every modern convenience known to man---were almost always viewed as oddities by the wizarding world. _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ made my flesh crawl. Not only were dragons, leprechauns and unicorns real, there was a host of horrific creatures afoot that I'd never heard of before. I was finally so unnerved that I threw the book aside and went downstairs. 

Molly was nowhere to be found, so I took an apple from a bowl in the kitchen and went outside to enjoy the sunshine for a while. I found Hermione Granger sitting on the grass, watching something at the far end of the field. "Mind if I join you?" I asked.

I think she said 'not at all', or something to that effect, but I failed to catch her exact words. There, several hundred feet away, were three small figures flying on---

"They're flying on broomsticks!" I gasped, pointing at Ron, Harry and Ginny darting in mid-air at the far end of the field. 

Hermione laughed at my expression. "Yes, they're flying on broomsticks."

I fell silent. It seemed like I'd used the word 'incredible' ad nauseum in the past two weeks, and could think of nothing else to say. I could only goggle at the sight.

"I'm not much on flying myself," Hermione was saying.

"Why's that?"

"I just don't care much for heights." She shrugged in indifference. 

I could sympathize in that I'm not all that fond of heights myself. But still, just to have the ability to fly like that… I glanced at Hermione, who looked as though taking off on a broomstick was an odious chore, and felt suddenly, insanely jealous of these people.

"Kailin, I'm really, really sorry about the other night at Grimmauld Place." Hermione turned to me, her brown eyes full of worry. "I didn't know that Professor Lupin hadn't told you about his lycanthropy. I would never have said anything if I'd known."

"Don't worry about it, Hermione. He had intended to tell me later that night anyway."

"But it would have been better coming from him."

"It wouldn't have been good coming from anyone. Please don't blame yourself." I hugged my knees to my chest and cast around for a change of subject. "You said that your parents are Muggles, right? What do they do?"

"They're dentists."

From that, I could only assume that wizards had other options when it came to dental care. 

"How did they find out that you were a witch? Is there some way to tell?"

"No." She shook her head emphatically. "I mean, when I was small I could do a few odd things like make my toys zoom round the tub at bath time, but there's no one sign that you're a witch or wizard. We didn't know until I got my Hogwarts letter."

"Hogwarts letter?"

"Whenever a magical child is born, the information is recorded somewhere. If you have sufficient talent, when you turn eleven you receive a letter inviting you to school at Hogwarts."

I thought of the tons of junk mail I received on any given day and how easily I would dump something like a letter for a wizards' school straight into the trash can.

"But why would your parents even believe it? Did they know that all this existed?" I asked, gesturing toward the fliers 

"No, not at all. But if you're from a Muggle family, the letter is followed up by a visit from one of the teachers---in my case, Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher. She came and talked to me and to my parents all about the wizarding world and going to school at Hogwarts. There's even a booklet they give you---_So Your Child Is A Witch,_ or something like that." 

"Do some children end up not going?" I asked.

Hermione considered this. "Yes. I think Professor McGonagall told me once that only about half the eligible Muggleborn children decide to attend Hogwarts."

"But what do your parents tell their friends? Do they just come right out and say that their daughter is going to a school for witches?"

She giggled. "Of course not. People would think they were mad. I believe they say that I'm attending an exclusive prep school in the north, or something. It is a bit hard for them though, once their friends start going on about their own children."

Molly appeared in the doorway. "There you are. Lunch is ready. Where are the rest?"

"Down at the far end of the garden," Hermione said. "Shall I call them in?"

"Please do. After lunch, your lot can do a bit of de-gnoming."

I climbed to my feet and followed Molly inside, wondering what in the world she was talking about. I found out after we'd all eaten our fill of stew and crusty bread.

"Garden gnomes?" I said, bemused. 

Harry Potter flashed me a grin. "Not what you think," he assured me.

Not what I thought, indeed. After fifteen minutes, I was hurling the wrinkled brown creatures over the garden wall with the best of them, having received yet another humbling lesson in How Little I Knew About The Wizarding World. I was startled to learn that the nasty little buggers were commonplace in North America as well as Northern Europe.

"But how?" I demanded. "I've never seen these in my life. No one I know has ever seen these things. How can these they be all over the place?"

Ron Weasley shrugged, having just bested Harry's last toss by a good ten feet. "You have to know how to look for them, I s'pose."

How to look for them. Some things about the wizarding world quite simply made my head hurt.


	8. Chapter 7: The Yearbook

**__**

Chapter 7: The Yearbook

As the days went by, my cold faded into minor sniffles, and my heart seemed to be healing as well. At the Burrow, everything was ordinary, and yet extraordinary at the same time. Perhaps my sense of astonishment was becoming dulled by the constant parade of new and different experiences. Perhaps when I returned to my Muggle existence, all this would seem like a bizarre dream. But one thing I knew for certain: I would never take anything at face value again.

I was still unable to decide what to do about Remus. One minute I was certain that love would conquer all, and the next, I was ready to pack it in and fly back to the States. This was Remus' world: I thought I could fit in---albeit barely---but could not imagine the reverse. After all the revelations of the past two weeks, I could easily accept that just about anything was possible. What seemed impossible was the idea of taking Remus home to meet my friends:_ This is my boyfriend, Remus. He's a werewolf. So, how've you been?_

On the other hand, I couldn't imagine deliberately walking out of his life. _My_ life would certainly be a lot easier without a werewolf in it, but the thought of breaking up was almost too painful to contemplate.

The bottom line was, I loved him. The question was, could I live with the idea that he was a wizard and a werewolf? Could I give up the all-American girl's dream of the big house in the suburbs with the investment banker husband, three kids and a carpool?

Or had that ever really been my dream? I reminded myself that I had done absolutely nothing in the way of settling down so far. The travel nursing, with its inherently gypsy lifestyle, was my attempt to search for something---but for what? Was this it? 

I'd been there five days when, bored by magic textbooks, Ron's back issues of _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_, and my own lack of emotional progress, I found myself looking through the adult Weasleys' hodgepodge of books for some optional reading material. There were several books of magical cures and remedies that I would have given my eye teeth to show to my old nursing instructors, a tome on home repair which relied less on carpentry than on magic spells, and a well-thumbed copy of _Parenting: Easier Than Waving a Wand_, the wizarding version of Dr. Spock. It was then that I found the Hogwarts yearbooks. 

There were a half-dozen which seemed to be from Arthur and Molly's era. I'd spent enough time around the Potter-Weasley-Granger trio by now to know all about the four houses at Hogwarts, and I easily located pictures of an impossibly young Arthur Weasley and sweetly coquettish Molly Lewis in the Gryffindor section. They waved at me cheerfully from their respective pages, blissfully unaware that seven children lay in their future. A few obviously newer yearbooks lay beneath, probably from the older Weasley boys' years at school. Sure enough: Charlie the Dragon Slayer and Bill the Curse Breaker were there. And on the very bottom of the stack sat one more yearbook.

This one was much older than the others, and I couldn't quite place the decade. Twenties? Too early, I decided, glancing briefly at the hairstyles. Thirties? Forties? Must have been one of Arthur or Molly's parents, I decided. The Weasleys, I suspected, were one of those families where aunts, uncles, cousins and all variety of relatives in between had gone to the same school. I was thumbing pages with disinterest since no one I knew would be in it,--- and then something caught my eye. I didn't know whether it was the picture or the name, but a shiver went down my spine and my hand faltered. Frowning, I leafed back a page or two, trying to find whatever had grabbed my attention.

I turned one more page.

And froze.

Time crawled to a stop . My heart thudded painfully in my chest, and it seemed so loud that I wasn't sure if I was merely feeling it or actually hearing it. What I was seeing was incredible, so incredible that I couldn't pull my eyes away---couldn't blink, for that matter.

My hands shook to the point that when I tried to stand, I nearly dropped the book. I gasped aloud, terrified that if I lost the page, I'd never find it again. And I had to find it. I needed to show it to Molly. Now.

"Molly? Molly!" My legs seemed like lead as I raced through the Burrow, looking for her. Where was she? I had to find her. Had to. 

"Kailin?" Molly came racing down a flight of stairs from the attic, panting for breath and a fearful expression on her face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

I thrust the yearbook at her. "Look," I croaked, breathless myself.

A fleeting expression of relief that her family and home were intact passed over her face, followed by one of total bewilderment, Molly took the book from me and scanned the page. "What am I looking for?"

I was already thrusting my finger at the picture in the middle: _Marva McClain, Hufflepuff, Class of 1941._

"It's Marvy!" I cried. "It's my grandmother Marvy. Marva McClain!"

"Marva McClain," she repeated. "Your grandmother? Are you sure?"

What a ridiculous question. "Of course! I know my own grandmother, Molly!"

"But this means that your grandmother was a witch."

I knew it did, but hearing her say it made it seem all the more improbable. 

"Is that possible? Do witches ever stop being witches and live as Muggles? She never said anything about magic, or did any sort of magic, and I was almost closer to Marvy than I was to my own mother!" I blurted. "She would have told me---wouldn't she?"

"No one stops being a witch or wizard, Kailin. It's what you are. But I'm sure there are some who live as Muggles, or just neglect their skills to the point where they seldom think to use them anymore." Molly looked thoughtful. "Imagine that! Your grandmother went to Hogwarts! You have a witch in your family tree. I wonder if there are any others." 

I wondered, too. My family, like all families, had its share of high achievers and downright embarrassments, but as far as I knew, every last one of them was as Muggle as they come. But then, I'd thought that of Marvy, too. 

"Is there a pay phone in the village?"

"Of course," she said, then added proudly, "I used it once."

"How far is it?" I clattered down the stairs toward the second floor landing; 

"It's about a half-hour's walk. Why?"

"This is completely, utterly incomprehensible, Molly. I _have_ to talk to my grandfather about it! I just have to!" I rushed into my room and started upending my belongings, looking for my purse.

"Kailin, wait---you can't do that!" Molly had followed me into the room.

I stopped my searching to look up at her and my heart contracted painfully. If there was some sort of silly wizarding law prohibiting discussion of witchcraft with Muggle family members, I was going to scream. "Why not?" I demanded angrily.

"Because it's only nine in the morning. I don't know where in America your grandfather lives, but I suspect it'll still be rather early for a fellytone call."

Sweet, silly relief swept over me, and I sank onto my bed, overcome by laughter.

We headed for the village of Ottery St. Catchpole just after lunch. I was back to peppering Molly with questions as we walked. Were wizards who 'went Muggle', in my words, ostracized? At what age did children start to display magical tendencies? Was it considered a disgrace for witches or wizards to marry a Muggle? Did a wizarding couple always produce wizarding offspring? What were the odds for a wizard and a Muggle? I think Molly was frankly glad when we arrived in town so I'd find the phone and talk to someone else for a change.

When we reached the pay phone, Molly stood politely outside the booth waiting and killing time by studying the Muggles while I fumbled with my wallet, the phone card, and the calling instructions. In my nervousness I misdialled at least twice. Then, finally, I stood fidgeting while Billy Mitchell's phone rang in Rockford, Illinois. 

"Hello?"

I recognized the voice with a dual rush of relief and homesickness.

"Grandpa? It's me, Kailin."

"Kailin?" Billy chuckled. "Hiya, honey, how are you? How are things in merry old England?"

"Just fine, Grandpa. I'm having a great time. Wish you were here."

"When are you coming home?" he wanted to know.

"I don't know yet. Listen, Grandpa, I need to ask you a few questions. Is this a good time?"

"Good a time as any. I'm an old geezer, remember? Nothing better to do."

I smiled at the gentle teasing. "You're not old, Grandpa."

"Well, I'm sure as heck not young. What do you want, sweetie? You visited your grandmother's family and they told you what a shiftless loser I am?"

I laughed, then sobered quickly. "I need to ask you about Marvy's background."

"Her background," he echoed. "You mean like where her family came from and all? I thought you knew all that."

"No, it's something else I just discovered."

"Oh, you found out about all that witch stuff, didn't you?"

I'd been prepared to believe that Marvy had never told anyone about her abilities: that would have explained why I'd never heard about it until now. Billy's offhanded question startled me.

"You knew?" I gasped.

"Sure, I knew. She was always real upfront with me about it. How did you find out?"

"I---I made some friends who are witches and wizards," I stammered. "They went to the same school where Marvy went. I found her picture in an old yearbook."

"You don't say. How about that!" Grandpa enthused. "Are you upset about that, Kailin honey? Because it's not that nasty devil worship stuff they talk about here,---"

"No, no," I assured him, "I know it's not. It's just that---well---why didn't she tell me?"

There was brief silence, then: "Well, she just didn't think it was important, I guess." 

"Not important?" I was dumbfounded. "This is just so amazing! So incredible! How can it not be important?"

Another brief silence. "Not everybody sees it that way, honey. The notion that someone's a witch doesn't play too good in farm country, if you know what I mean."

I knew. I couldn't imagine Marvy revealing all to the Rotary. "So she---she never---did magic after she married you?"

Grandpa Billy laughed. "No, I wouldn't go that far. She used to love cleaning off the dinner table with that wand of hers. She---"

"Do you still have the wand?" I interrupted eagerly.

"No, I believe she lost it years ago. Never used it anyway, once the kids came along."

Which probably explained why I'd never heard any family rumors about it. "Why did she go into Muggle nursing?" I asked. "The wizards have healers. Why didn't she do that instead?"

"'For Pete's sake," he chortled. "Muggle! Haven't heard that word in years. Well, Marvy was real interested in politics and in the war. It was going on when she graduated from that Warthog School---"

"---Hogwarts," I corrected promptly.

"Oh, yeah. Hogwarts. Anyway, she wanted to do her part in the war. Guess the wizards weren't taking an active enough part for her, so that's when she signed up for regular nursing school. Ended up with me as a patient one day. She used to say I was the meanest patient she ever had. We'd only known each other for a month when we got married. She ever tell you that?"

"I just knew it was a brief courtship."

"'Brief' is the word, all right. We fell smack dab in love like we were hit by a ton of bricks. 'Course then the army had to go and mess us up, tell me I'm shipping back to the States in less than a week… So I asked Marva to marry me, figuring she'd turn me down cold since we hadn't known each other that long."

"And she didn't," I finished for him. I knew this part of the story well.

"Nope, she didn't. Got married three days later and had fifty years of wedded bliss until last fall." 

"Did she ever miss doing magic?" 

"I don't know," Grandpa said in a strained voice, and from three thousand miles away I could sense that the memories were becoming too overwhelming. It was only nine months since Marvy had died, and if my loss was painful, his was acutely so. "I asked her that once. She told me…"

"Yes?" A lump formed in my throat as I waited for him to finish.

"…She told me that she didn't really miss it. Said she'd found something better." His voice cracked.

_Something better. _His words struck me as hard as if I'd been slapped in the face. The similarities between my situation and my grandparents' situation were striking: utterly convinced of love despite brief courtships, giving up one world for another. What were the odds that while in Britain I would run into a wizard and fall in love? That his friends would have a yearbook which proved my grandmother had been a witch? Was Marvy peering down from heaven even now, delighted that her last bit of magic had been to land me at King's Cross Station at the same time as Remus Lupin?

Out of nowhere, a memory surfaced: I was fourteen, and Marvy and I were baking cookies. I was bemoaning some burning adolescent issue while she patiently listened to my ranting. I have no idea now what I was complaining about, but I would always remember her words: "People worry so much about how long they're going to live, Kailin. They should be worried about how _wide_ they're going to live."

I knew at that moment that I wanted to live wide enough to have Remus Lupin in my life.

Clutching the receiver with both hands, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass wall of the phone booth, my shoulders shaking with sobs. While I cried in Britain for Remus, Grandpa Billy cried in America for Marvy. Outside, Molly Weasley saw me and silently mouthed a question to see if I was all right. I took a shaky breath and waved her off.

"Grandpa," I managed finally, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine, honey. It just hits me kind of hard some days," Billy said shakily. 

We talked for a few minutes longer before I reluctantly rang off---although not until I told Grandpa that I was in love with a wizard. I didn't mention the rest of it, because it simply wasn't the right time and, quite frankly, right now it wasn't important.

"What happened?" Molly regarded me with motherly concern as I stepped out of the phone booth.

I gave her a blow-by-blow replay of the phone call as we walked home to the Burrow and finished by telling her that I had my answer in regards to my own dilemma. I needed to talk to Remus, I told her pleadingly. Was there a way? Could she contact him, or could Arthur contact him from work? A message wouldn't do: owls were too slow for what I needed. Could I speak with him in person somehow? Molly promised to do her best, and when we reached the Burrow I was treated to the bizarre sight of my hostess with her head stuck in the fireplace, talking animatedly to her husband.

"He thinks he knows where to find him," she reported to me. "How about if we invite him to supper?"

"That would be wonderful," I said fervently.

Arthur promised to report back as soon as he could. Still, it was nearly an hour before he reappeared in the fireplace.

Remus would be dining with us.


	9. Chapter 8: Something Better

**__**

Chapter 8: Something Better

The rest of the afternoon crawled liked molasses. I had managed to work myself into a fine state of anxiety, and Molly finally threw me out of the kitchen and told me to go after the children and get them to wash up. 

I was watching the Weasleys' odd clock when the hand with Arthur's name on it swung into place at 'Home', and almost simultaneously I heard male voices. It had not occurred to me that Remus would accompany Arthur, but suddenly, there he was. My palms were damp and my heart was racing as I saw him for the first time since the night I'd learned of his affliction. There was a sudden aching chasm in my stomach which had nothing to do with hunger, and I had a ridiculous urge to disregard common manners and throw myself at him. Molly was bustling around, welcoming Remus to the Burrow, and it took a moment before he noticed me. Then his eyes caught mine and held them. My mouth spread into what felt like the world's dumbest grin, while his lips curved into nothing more than a faint smile of acknowledgment. My stomach clenched into an anxious knot. Something was wrong, but what?

"How are you, Kailin?" he asked politely.

"I've had a miserable cold," I said. "Molly's been nursing me back to health."

"It's the country air," Molly said briskly, striding between us with dishes of steaming food in her hands. "Much better for you than holing up in the city."

"I had a cold," Remus pointed out to her. "Why didn't you offer to nurse _me_ back to health?"

Before Molly could reply, the Weasley offspring, along with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, piled into the room and Remus turned all his attention to them. I tried to help Molly get the rest of supper on the table, wondering the whole time why he seemed to be giving his most enthusiastic greetings to everyone but me. When we seated ourselves at the large kitchen table, Molly blatantly placed Remus directly opposite me. There was absolutely no way to avoid looking at each other, and after a few uncomfortable minutes I came to the conclusion that he was doing his best to ignore me. My appetite gone, I spent the rest of the meal picking at the food on my plate. Molly, I knew, was regarding us with a puzzled expression on her face. Finally, she cleared her throat.

"Remus," she said brightly, "Kailin discovered the most extraordinary thing today. Kailin, do show him that book. " 

I retrieved the Hogwarts yearbook from the living room and brought it back to the table. I'd placed a bookmark at the correct page, so I flipped it open and passed it across to him.

"That's my grandmother," I said. "Marvy. The one I told you about."

"Really?" Remus said, startled. "Your grandmother went to Hogwarts?"

"Apparently." Grateful to have something concrete to discuss, I told him about the main points of my long-distance conversation with Grandpa Billy, omitting the emotional aspects until we would have a chance to talk in private. And then the yearbook was whisked away by Ginny Weasley and Hermione Granger so they could snicker at the hairstyles and fashions of the early 1940's, and the conversation moved on to something else.

I'm sure Molly saw how dispirited I was, for as soon as dinner was over, she insisted that Remus and I get some fresh air while everyone else handled the clean-up chores. It wasn't any more subtle than seating him across the table from me, but I was grateful to finally be alone with him. He was acting so distant that he might as well have been on another planet, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"It's a beautiful night,' I said, trying to jump-start the conversation. The sky was cloudless and the moon was bright, trying to outshine the remaining daylight. I stopped to admire it, but Remus glanced up only briefly and then kept on walking.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't find anything beautiful about that damned thing," he said stiffly. "It runs my life, you know."

I mentally slapped myself in the forehead: stupid, stupid, stupid… 

"How've you been?" I tried again.

Remus shrugged. "Fine, other than a bit of a cold. Same one as you've had, I suppose."

This was going nowhere. "I'm glad you could come to supper tonight."

"That's not exactly a hardship. Molly's a good cook."

Well, that was a slap in the face if ever there was one. "You know, Remus, I didn't realize I needed to tiptoe on eggshells all evening," I snapped. "I believe we were on good speaking terms the last time I saw you." 

He sighed. "Kailin, just say what you're going to say so we can get this over with."

"Get what over with?" I demanded.

He wheeled around to glare at me. "You had Molly invite me here so you could tell me how lovely it's been, but you have no room in your life for a werewolf. I've been through this before, so let's just get on with it, shall we?"

My jaw dropped. No wonder he'd been behaving so strangely: he was waiting for the axe to fall. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Just what did Arthur Weasley tell you this afternoon?"

"What do you think? That I needed to come to the Burrow for supper because you had something important to discuss with me," Remus said, scowling. "So go ahead and discuss it. I'm waiting."

"I already did. I wanted to tell you about Marvy being a witch."

He was eyeing me cautiously now. "That's what you wanted to tell me?"

"Yes," I said indignantly. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought it was a pretty spectacular bit of news."

"Well, yes, it is, of course." 

Even in the fading light I could tell that Remus' cheeks were starting to turn red. Good, I thought viciously. I was more than annoyed now. I was downright angry. "Remus Lupin! Do you always assume the worst?" 

"To be honest, it's worked fairly well for me over the years." Flustered, he ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know what to say, Kailin. I'm sorry. I thought---well, obviously, I was wrong. Wasn't I?"

The plainly hopeful note on which he'd ended tore into my anger and actually made me smile. "Yes, you were wrong. After I discovered the yearbook with Marvy's picture in it, I begged Molly to get in touch with you so I could tell you about it. I wanted you to know that although I may be a Muggle, I do have some redeeming qualities."

"Of course you do," Remus put in hastily. "I never said you didn't."

I took a deep breath. "And I also needed to tell you that having you unavailable for one or two days a month is a small price to pay for the pleasure of your company the rest of the time."

His eyes were searching my face, almost willing it to confirm that he had heard correctly.

"Which means what, exactly? You're saying that you--you're---that it's---"

"I'm saying that I have no problem with who or what you are." I told him about the rest of my phone call to Grandpa Billy: how Marvy had left the wizarding world behind to follow the man she loved because she'd found 'something better', how she'd told me once to live 'wide' instead of worrying about living 'long'. 

"I think," I finished, my voice trembling, "that what happened to her has happened to me. I've found something better, too. And that's you, Remus Lupin."

He looked almost dumbstruck. "You're sure?" 

It was obvious that he hadn't expected me to make this choice. "More than sure," I stammered, "or I wouldn't be saying it."

"I mean, you didn't say that it doesn't matter, and that's absolutely the worst thing you could ever say, because it _does_ matter. How could it not?"

"Of course it matters---but not as much as you matter to me." With that, I reached up to draw his head close to mine.

The kiss reminded me of the first one between us, with the same desperate undercurrents beneath it. When we stopped to draw breath, he tried to throw in a caveat of sorts. 

"If you ever change your mind, I would understand,---"

"I'm sure you would. Just don't wait for it. I'm yours for as long as you want me."

"Forever," Remus mumbled at once. "And I'm yours for as long as you want _me---"_

"Forever," I echoed, and again I pressed my lips to his.

It was twenty minutes before we made it back to the Burrow. When we'd left the house, we hadn't even been touching each other. Now, we had our arms around each other and were loathe to let go even for the sake of getting through the doorway. The house, I discovered, was deserted, but voices from the garden told me where everyone had gone.

Molly glanced up as Remus and I appeared in the door. A broad smile spread across her face. 

"Well," she said, "that's better! Everything all right?"

"More than all right," I said, blushing, and Remus hugged me close. 

"I think you're right about the country air, Molly," he said. "Obviously does a world of good."

"Knew it would," she said, satisfied. 

"Where's everybody else?" I asked. Besides Molly, only Hermione and Arthur were in sight.

"Off flying. It's dark enough that they can risk a bit of quidditch."

Remus glanced at the gathering darkness and then at me. "Have any of them taken you up on a broom this week?"

"No," I said. No one had volunteered, and although it had crossed my mind a time or two, I was reluctant to ask. 

"Spare broom, Arthur?"

"Shed," said Arthur, not bothering to look up. He was engrossed in the Evening Prophet, reading by the light of his wand.

"Come on, Kailin." Remus took me by the hand and led me across the darkening yard toward a weathered wooden shed. He poked around in it by the light of his own wand while I waited, shivering with anticipation. After a few moments, he found a broom he considered airworthy and straddled it. "Hop on," he said.

"Front or back?" I asked nervously.

"Back. Hold on tight around my waist."

I did as instructed, and suddenly the wind was rushing through my hair and the ground was dropping away. I gasped and clutched Remus even tighter. I'd been worried that the broom handle would be uncomfortable to sit on, but just the opposite was true. Instead it felt like there was no broom at all, that Remus was soaring through the air on his own with me clinging to him. It was, quite frankly, terrifying. I like to have a reassuringly solid fuselage around me when I'm airborne, and there was nothing reassuring about this. I looked down once, saw the ground speeding by, and immediately regretted it. It brought to mind the emergency helicopter landing of two years ago and why I'd chosen to give up that line of work. As soon as we landed, I swore to myself, I'd join Hermione, Molly and Arthur on the porch and sit out the remainder of the evening there.

"Hey, Kailin! Way to go!" 

"Great flying, Professor!"

I think it was one of the Weasley kids cheering us on as we swooped into their territory, but I wasn't about to peer around to make certain. By that time, I had my face pressed into Remus' shoulder blades. We took a few sharp turns, and I moaned aloud.

"How are you doing, Kailin?" Remus called over his shoulder.

"I've been better," I mumbled.

He must have detected the note of desperation in my voice, because we landed soon after. I suppose the landing was smooth enough; having never landed on a broom before, I had nothing with which to compare it. All I knew was that solid ground had never felt so good. Remus stood up at once, still straddling the broom. I tried to stand, but my legs quivered; when I let go of him, I overbalanced and sat backwards on the ground with a little squeal. Immediately, he hoisted me to my feet.

"Are you all right?" he wanted to know.

"I think," I said shakily, "that there's a very good reason I'm a Muggle."

"So this was your first and last broom ride, I take it?"

"I'm afraid so. Thanks, but I'll stick to airplanes from now on."

Remus laughed and hugged me to him. Suddenly, the whole thing seemed funny. I joined in his laughter, and when the laughter subsided, we were looking at each other with broad smiles on our faces and an almost painful longing in our eyes. He cradled my cheek with one hand.

"How long did you plan to remain here at the Burrow?" he asked.

"Molly just said to stay as long as I needed to. I could probably leave tonight. The cold's nearly gone, and I've got my head screwed back on straight. Do you suppose," I asked huskily, "that you could give me a lift home?"

"As long as it's not on a broom?" he teased.

"No brooms." 

And he kissed me deeply, tenderly, insistently.


	10. Chapter 9: Living Wide

**__**

Chapter 9: Living Wide

As the evening drew to a close, I packed my bag and thanked Molly and Arthur for their kindness and hospitality. Then Remus Apparated the two of us directly to my flat. Needless to say, he didn't go home.

I awoke next morning to find him working happily in the kitchen, brewing tea and trying to scratch up some breakfast with a combination of magic and ordinary cooking skills. 

"You're up," he protested as soon as he spotted me.

"Wasn't I supposed to be?" I asked, bemused.

Remus frowned. "Well, yes, but---well, I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed, that's all. I got a late start. I had to pick up something at my place first."

"Should I go back to bed?"

"Yes."

"Do you need any help with the appliances, or---"

"No. Go away."

I pretended to pout, but left him to his own devices. I was happily snuggled back under the covers, contemplating the dramatic changes that had taken place in my life over the past month, when Remus appeared in the doorway with a tray.

"You didn't have to do this, you know." I sat up in bed and repositioned myself against the headboard. "I mean, it's sweet, but you didn't have to."

"I wanted to surprise you," he said, placing the tray on my lap with a flourish. 

"Well, you did." I surveyed the contents of the tray with delight: tea and toast, a votive candle from the living room, and a water glass filled with half a dozen yellow rosebuds. The roses looked vaguely familiar. "Are these---?"

"From the bush by the front door, yeah. I'm sure the landlord won't notice that a few of them are gone. Anyway," Remus said, settling into place next to me, "it was necessary in order to provide the correct ambiance."

I nearly choked on my first sip of tea. "Ambiance?" I repeated, laughing. "For breakfast?"

"No," he said quietly. "For this." 

And with that, he reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew a ring. I caught my breath. The narrow, braided gold band glowed with the patina of age.

"This," Remus continued, "was my mother's wedding ring, and my grandmother's wedding ring, and my great-grandmother's before that."

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

"I can't buy you jewels. I can offer you only myself and this ring."

"I don't know what more I could want," I said, my voice trembling.

Remus smiled, took my left hand in his and slipped the ring on my finger. "Will you marry me, Kailin?"

"Yes," I whispered. "I would be honored to be your wife, Remus Lupin."

I know that when he looked into my eyes at that moment, he saw no hesitation there. Still, there was the faintest shadow of worry on his face.

"What?" I demanded, sudden fear rising within me. "Is there anything else you haven't told me?" 

He chuckled. "No. I have no bombshells left. It's just that---well, a week from now is the full moon. If you have second thoughts after that, I would understand."

"I won't have second thoughts," I reassured him.

Remus didn't look convinced. "I know you think so now, but let's see how you feel then."

No amount of protests would convince him otherwise. 

We decided on several things that day: that he should move in with me as soon as possible, that we would be married in a wizarding ceremony to be held in three weeks time(provided that I didn't change my mind, as Remus kept reminding me), and that I would work as a nurse in order to support the two of us. It was the latter decision that posed a host of problems.

Had Remus been a Muggle, things would have been a lot easier. Marrying a British citizen would normally mean that I was entitled to remain in the country. But Remus, as part of the wizarding world, was 'off the grid', so to speak. I could argue my point until I was blue in the face, but since the British Muggle government had absolutely no record of his existence, I was not legally allowed to remain in Britain past the terms of my entry visa.

I could have foregone the hassle and simply vanished into the wizarding world, but a nursing job required a state-bestowed nursing license, and therefore a state-registered identity. And so, I entered the bureaucratic maze of British red tape, which proved to be no less frustrating than its American counterpart. I think governments everywhere must take sadistic pleasure in torturing their good-intentioned, law-abiding citizens.

The night of the full moon, Remus prepared the second bedroom for himself. It was when I asked him if there was anything he needed that I began to see why he'd given me one more opportunity to opt out of our relationship. 

"I need a large bowl," he said at once. "For water. And some newspapers, to spread on the floor. For---in case I need to---well, you know."

He left the sentence hanging there. I carefully kept my facial expression neutral and found the items he'd requested, although inwardly I cringed at the reality of the situation. Ten minutes later, Remus took the final dose of his Wolfsbane Potion, kissed me goodnight, and locked himself in the bedroom.

Although the moon was rising, it wasn't yet bedtime. I watched television for a bit, my ears straining to hear any sounds coming from the second bedroom, all the while hoping I wouldn't hear anything. When I finally turned off the TV and went around the flat turning off lights, I heard a snuffling sound at his door, as though a large animal behind it was trying to catch my scent. Then, as I lay in my own bed, I could hear the muffled clacking of paws on the hardwood floors. I could also detect a faint odor in the flat: no more so than that found in houses with pets, but clear evidence that another creature was sharing my living space. I lay there for a very long time, thinking _there's a werewolf down the hall_ and taking deep calming breaths, all the while reminding myself that I would be doing this once a month and sometimes twice, for the rest of my life. 

I must have finally willed myself to fall asleep. The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in my windows and driving me from my bed. I padded down the hall to the kitchen and ran into Remus, who was heading for the bathroom.

He looked hideous: his eyes were red-rimmed and his unshaven cheeks, gaunt. He had a blanket slung around him since he was apparently naked underneath, and was hunched over as though in pain. A downy layer of fuzz clung to what skin I could see, and the faint odor I'd noticed hours earlier was now a distinctly feral scent that quite literally made my hair stand on end.

"Good morning," I said, my voice forcibly bright and cheery. 

"Morning," he mumbled, and pushed past me. 

I went on to the kitchen and began to make a pot of coffee: this called for something stronger than plain old English tea. Moments later, I heard Remus shuffle back to the bedroom and close the door. As the coffee perked, I wondered what to do next. I knew that I should probably leave him alone until he was ready to emerge, but quite frankly, I wanted to get a closer look at him. I sat and drank my coffee and debated, finally deciding to leave him be. He would come out when he was ready, I told myself. 

But when I passed his door on the way back down the hall, curiosity got the better of me. I summoned my courage and tapped lightly on the door.

"Remus?"

There was a faint sound that might have been a response. I tried the door and found it unlocked. Quietly, I opened it and peeked in. 

He was lying on his stomach on the bed, arms hugging the pillow beneath his head. At the sound of the door, he opened his red-rimmed eyes and regarded me blearily. 

"Need to sleep," he mumbled.

"I know. I'm sorry---I just thought I'd see if you needed anything," I said quickly.

"No…Just sleep…"

"Okay. Well, I'll be in and out today. I thought maybe I'd look around for a dress for the wedding." I was starting to babble. Time to go.

Another grunt. On impulse, I crossed the room, leaned down, and---holding my breath against the wild odors---kissed the top of his head. Suddenly, Remus' shoulders started to shake. For one dreadful moment, I thought he was having a seizure of some sort. And then, I realized that the accompanying rumble in his throat was nothing more than _laughter._ I backed away, perplexed.

"You've made your point, Kailin," he chortled from the depths of the pillow. "Now get out. I stink and you know it."  
  
"Yes, sir." I grinned and headed for the door.

By the next morning, Remus was his old self again. I let him know in no uncertain terms that I had no intention of changing my mind, so he might as well move the last of his things out of his furnished room. Since I was curious to see what the Ministry of Magic deemed acceptable welfare housing, I went with him to retrieve his belongings.

It was a sad experience---not because Remus was unhappy to leave the Ministry-funded housing, but because of the people who couldn't. The occupants of the welfare hotel stared at us hungrily for one simple reason: Remus had found his ticket out of there, and they hadn't. There were all sorts: other werewolves like Remus, wizards and witches addicted to their fire whiskey, those more than a bit out of touch with reality. My heart broke when I saw the tiny room Remus had lived in and the filthy communal bath he'd had to share---not so much because he'd lived in such conditions, but because he was so perfectly willing to go back to it if I was unable to cope with what he was. 

And so, with Remus happily ensconced in both my flat and my bed, we sat down to plan our wedding. Molly Weasley had given me a crash course in wizarding weddings. There were, she told me, two parts to the ceremony: the legal contract, which actually bound us as husband and wife, and the celebratory Gathering afterwards. The contract portion was a simple matter of going to a Regional Ministry Registry, filling out a form, and having it witnessed. The second part of the wedding---the gathering---sounded much like the usual Muggle receptions I had been to, except that it began with a declaration of vows in front of our guests. Molly insisted that we hold the Gathering at the Burrow, and I didn't argue with her. Better to have a wizarding wedding reception on wizarding turf, I reasoned, if the guest list was to be comprised entirely of wizards.

The only regret I had was that Grandpa Billy, bless his heart, couldn't come. He was thrilled when I called to tell him of my engagement. Marvy would have been happy, he said, so happy that her life had come full circle in this way. But coming to the wedding was not an option, no matter how much I begged him: one hip was giving him trouble and he didn't think he could manage traveling halfway around the world, and besides, he didn't even have a current passport. I lamented the fact to Remus, who batted around the idea of finding some wizarding solution to the problem. I blanched at the idea.

"You can't fly him across the ocean on a broomstick!" I protested, aghast.

Remus laughed and reassured me that he was thinking along the lines of a temporary, magically produced passport. I called Billy back at once, but he thanked me for the offer and said that attempting travel with his present hip problems was still too much trouble, but could I please send him some pictures of the wedding? He'd always liked the way Marvy's wizard pictures had waved at him. I could only shake my head at the bizarre way my two worlds had come together.

And so, on a lovely August day, Remus and I went to the nearest Official Registry and completed the form that legalized our union. The form had spaces for our names, nationalities and wizarding status (Kailin Curtis, American Muggle; Remus Lupin, British wizard), and among a hundred other strange questions, a place to indicate whether either of us possessed any magical disabilities.

"What are magical disabilities?" I teased. "If you break your arm and can't use your wand, is that considered a magical disability?" 

Remus wasn't smiling. "No," he said flatly. "But being a werewolf is."

If I found that appalling, I was shocked when the registry woman at the counter took one look at our completed application, gave Remus a withering glare, and demanded to know if his data in the Half-Human Registry was up-to-date. I gasped aloud at the question. Remus glanced at me and shook his head in warning, then politely answered the woman's question. Two minutes later, the form was signed and witnessed. The woman gave us half-hearted congratulations, and then we turned to go. I was fuming inwardly. 

"Is that what you face all the time?" I demanded, furious with the woman's rude behavior. I'd assumed from his description of prejudice that it was merely a case of silly stereotypes perpetuated by the wizarding populace. Instead, I had discovered why Molly had called prejudice the wizarding world's dirty little secret. It was no less than government sponsored discrimination.

"No, it's usually worse," Remus said matter-of-factly.

"But '_half-human'_?"

He sighed. "Just leave it, Kailin. It's the way things are, and I'm used to it. Anyway, don't you want to kiss me or anything? We're married now, you know."

"Of course I do," I said sheepishly. In my anger, I'd forgotten that small fact. Making sure that the nasty registry woman at the counter could still see us plainly, I threw myself into my husband's arms and gave him a long, wet, sensually satisfying kiss. The woman, I noticed as Remus took my arm and escorted me outside, looked utterly revolted. 

"You do like to make your point, don't you?" he said, chuckling.

"I hope she loses her lunch over it," I said viciously. 

There wasn't a cloud in the brilliant blue sky over the Weasleys' orchard as we stood before a small company of friends and exchanged our vows of commitment. Remus declared me to be a precious gift of which he was undeserving, and promised to protect and love and honor me with his life. I quoted from the book of Ruth in the Bible: 

"Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die---there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you." 

And the assortment of witches and wizards, mostly those from what I'd finally learned was called the Order of the Phoenix, raised glasses to us in salute. At my request, and to Remus' surprise, Arthur Weasley proposed a toast to loved ones present only in our hearts. And so we toasted Marva McClain Mitchell and Sirius Black, and quick tears had filled Remus' eyes as glasses were raised once more. 

Toasts and sentiment behind us, the party began in earnest. Molly, in her role as hostess and proxy mother of the bride, was having the time of her life. I had exchanged quite a few pounds for galleons at Gringotts to enable her to buy sufficient provisions, and as I watched her load the serving table with mountains of food, it seemed she had cooked for a small army. I'd been concerned all week that I was overworking her, but she merely laughed at me and confided that she hoped this would give her son Bill some ideas. He and his French girlfriend were getting on well, and she was itching for some grandchildren.

The afternoon was warm and lovely, and those assembled were taking great pleasure in this opportunity to enjoy themselves. The only dark spot was an offhanded comment made by Minerva McGonagall, to the effect that happy days like these would be few and far between as Voldemort's powers strengthened. It was a reminder that these people---my new husband included---were putting their lives on the line to deal with this madman. But in the brilliant August sunlight, in the middle of the Weasleys' apple orchard, such threats seemed a long way off. It was my wedding day, and I refused to be haunted by such thoughts.

We had dispensed early on with the idea of a honeymoon. Remus felt uneasy about leaving the Order behind as they waited and watched for any sign that Voldemort was ready to take some action. As far as I was concerned, I was already on a honeymoon just by being with him. The party at the Burrow wound down with the sunset, Remus and I thanked the Weasleys profusely, then Apparated back to my---our---flat.

And so we settled down to wait for the wheels of government to turn. Thankfully, nurses were in as short supply in Britain as they were in the States. That meant that my application for a nursing license would be expedited---a bureaucratic euphemism for 'slow', as opposed to 'interminably long'. I had applied at a several hospitals, since actually having a job offer in my pocket would speed the process even further. Finally, after six weeks, I was an official member of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and could begin working as a 'general nurse' at the University of London Heart Hospital.

I wasn't terribly surprised to learn that, with socialized medicine being the norm in Britain, nurses' salaries were not as high as those in America. Still, coupled with Remus' monthly dole from the wizarding government, we were living happily if not extravagantly. We moved from the furnished holiday rental flat to a small flat of our own and did terribly romantic newlywed things like eating off orange crates until we could furnish the place. I dragged Remus to a handful of thrift shops and furniture consignment stores to find treasures for our first home. Since both of us were accustomed to traveling light, we didn't require much in the way of belongings. Our sparsely furnished flat was charming and cozy and ours, as long as we paid the rent.

I became accustomed to Remus' monthly transformations in fairly short order. We made sure to plan things for times other than around the full moon, and I gave him his space and time to prepare and recover. One thing was certain: I would never look at the moon in the same way again. 

And so, along with the rest of the wizarding world, we waited for good to prevail and evil, in the form of Lord Voldemort, to be defeated.


	11. Epilogue: The Rewards of Hope

**__**

Epilogue: The Rewards of Hope

The members of the Order of the Phoenix worked tirelessly to bring about Voldemort's downfall, but it wasn't to be achieved easily or without great cost. As Remus had told me at the beginning of our relationship, it was a war. And wars are not fought without loss. 

It was in the second year of our marriage that the battle against Voldemort escalated with frightening intensity. Everyone was on edge, but possibly none so much as Remus and I when we discovered that I was pregnant. It was not something we had planned. Yet, as so often happens, we were going to have a baby whether or not the timing was the best. 

At first, Remus was beside himself with joy. He had never believed that he would have a wife, let alone a child, and he could scarcely contain his elation when the pregnancy was confirmed. Then, when I was three months along, we discovered that I was carrying twins. 

One would think that our joy would have been doubled, but instead, it was our fears that multiplied. I was terrified that Remus would be killed in the struggle to take down Voldemort and his Death Eaters, leaving me to carry on alone. Not only that, it was the not knowing, the waiting for the end to come, that wore me out. It was a fear that couldn't be supported indefinitely, and I wasn't alone: every witch and wizard I knew was exhausted from the tension.

As attacks on Muggle relatives of the wizarding community began to occur with horrifying frequency, Remus worried for my life and that of our unborn children. As if that weren't enough, he was haunted by the irrational notion that as one of the Marauders, his life wasn't supposed to have a happy ending, and he would meet the same fate as his friends.

For months, we seemed to be caught in a limbo of dread. One moment, I was happily poring over decorating magazines, looking for inspiration for the nursery; the next, I would be quaking with fear if Remus came home even five minutes late any time he left the flat. His own anxiety took the form of insomnia. It was not unusual for me to wake in the morning and discover that he'd not slept at all. The only comfort whatsoever came simply from holding each other. Words were unnecessary, which was a good thing: it was impossible to voice our fears without losing the tight control we maintained over our emotions.

We had considered our options over and over again. Remus was all in favor of shipping me off to America; I could stay with Grandpa Billy and give birth there. But the self-proclaimed 'adrenaline junkie' had lost her taste for adventure: I wanted nothing more than to live quietly with my husband, continue working as a nurse, and give birth to our children. Quite simply, I refused to go anywhere without Remus. In the end, we both stayed. It probably wasn't the wisest course of action, but it was the only one we each could live with. 

The people I worked with at the London Heart Hospital, of course, had no idea what I faced every time my shift ended and I left for home. Their world was taken up with Muggle concerns, and they had no inkling of the drama being played out under their very noses, yet hidden from their sight. More than once, I resented the fact that I could not share my worries with them, and therefore they could not offer me any reassurance. And I could have used a lot of reassurance.

Just as babies are not always conceived according to plan, they are not born according to plan either. I went into labor two weeks early, just hours after Remus had closeted himself for the full moon. And so I paced the floor hour after hour, timing contractions and cursing at life in general for the fact that he was unavailable to me when I needed him most. I sent a message by owl to the Weasleys, hoping that Molly would be able to be with me through the rest of labor. By early the next morning, I still hadn't received a reply from her. When the contractions were close enough together that I could finally venture a trip to the hospital, I waddled to the curb alone and hailed a cab. 

The poor cabbie. He was terrified that I was going to deliver right then and there, even though I knew perfectly well that the delivery was probably still hours away, and told him so. We made excellent time, and he was nice enough to escort me to the front door of the hospital before he bolted.

I can laugh about it now, but I'm sure the nursing staff didn't buy my story that my husband couldn't be with me because of illness. I noticed the nurses whispering a lot, and I suspected that they believed him to be at a pub, too drunk to make an appearance at the hospital. And so I spent the next thirteen solid hours of labor either in tears or ranting about the injustices of life to anyone who would listen.

I was close to delivering when Molly Weasley finally arrived, shaken but happy. The arrival of the babies was not the only thing to celebrate, she murmured to me when my nurse stepped out of the room. During the night, Voldemort had finally been defeated by Harry Potter. Details were sketchy, she said, and apologized for knowing only the final outcome and that all in her family had made it through unscathed. It was the motivation I needed to finish bringing my two little boys into the world. Sirius James and William Mitchell Lupin would live free of the fear of the hated, evil wizard, and I cried tears of both joy and relief as they took their first breaths in the late afternoon of June tenth.

Arthur Weasley brought Remus to the hospital that evening. I knew that he would come the moment he had the least amount of strength to do so, although he clearly could have used another twelve hours of sleep. I'm sure the nurses took one look at his haggard post-werewolf appearance and decided that their assumptions about the pub were correct. 

The look on his face, as he held Sirius and Billy in his arms for the first time, was one of a man richly blessed by fortune and scarcely able to comprehend it. He studied their tiny faces and their perfectly formed features while tears of joy streamed silently down his face. 

"They're perfect," he whispered in awe. "So tiny and so perfect."

Molly Weasley sighed happily. "Reminds me of when Fred and George were born. Of course, to look at the big lumps now, you'd never know how precious they were when they were small."

I laughed, thanking God that my many blessings included my friendship with Molly. She had helped me through my adjustment to Remus and the magical world, and now she would serve as the invaluable advisor to the greenhorn first-time mother. 

Relieved as Remus was at the news of the war's end, he couldn't help but feel some guilt that he had spent the final battle in werewolf form, unable to help his friends. I, however, was frankly relieved that events had transpired in this way. Had it not been the full moon, he would have had to choose between being with me during my labor, or alongside his friends in the final battle. I know that the choice would have been agony for him. 

Eventually we asked the inevitable question: who had been lost?

Arthur Weasley's smile faded. Albus Dumbledore, he said sadly. Severus Snape and another Hogwarts teacher I didn't know. Hestia Jones, Mad-Eye Moody and a dozen others from the Order. Another dozen Hogwarts students, although Harry Potter and his friends had survived. The Death Eaters who weren't killed outright had scattered and would be rounded up in due time. The wizarding world was, for now, safe.

Yes, there was much to celebrate.

******

It's been six months now since Voldemort was defeated. Sirius and Billy are fat and sassy, sitting in their high chairs and watching as Remus and I put up our Christmas tree. Remus is like a kid himself this Christmas: fatherhood fits him like a glove, and he knows it. There aren't a lot of stay-at-home dads in the wizarding world, but he's enjoying his role thoroughly. While I work, Remus takes care of the babies. He takes them to the park in their pram, plays with them, feeds them, puts them down for their naps. During the full moon, Molly watches them if I'm unavailable. 

"It's so lovely to have babies in the Burrow again," she sighs, pleased to get back into practice before Bill and his wife Fleur welcome their first child in the spring.

Hermione Granger is planning for a career in Wizard Law, in preparation for taking on discrimination in the wizarding world. Emboldened by my support and that of his friends, Remus has written letters to the editor of the Daily Prophet, complaining of the pervasive prejudice that exists. Others who have been discarded by wizarding society have joined with him in protest as well, and I think he sees a glimmer of hope that someday, opinions will change. A new magazine called_ Magical World Times _was recently started up; it's sympathetic to our cause, and Remus has been asked to contribute a few articles on the subject of tolerance.

We have finally convinced Grandpa Billy to get a passport and come to Britain. I think he decided that seventy-eight really wasn't too old to fly around the world, and that he should get a first-hand look at these new great-grandsons of his. He'll be here in a week, spending the Christmas holiday with us, and I can't wait to see him.

Sirius gurgled happily from his baby seat, drawing my attention by alternating a goofy little grin with blowing spit bubbles. I pointed it out to Remus.

"Wait until he gets older. He's going to be a little dickens," I said, shaking my head.

"Well, we did name him Sirius," Remus reminded me soberly. "Be scared."

But _scared _is not a word in my vocabulary any longer. I am living a full, wide life, richer than I ever thought possible. 

All because I married a werewolf.

__

Author's Note:

I can't end here without thanking all who read and reviewed. If I didn't have to worry about such mundane issues as a job, a home and a family, I'm sure I could have made the story a bit longer. 

As for the losses incurred during the war, I kept Molly's family intact because Kailin needed her at a crucial time. I suspect that Molly's good fortune won't be the case by the time book 7 is completed. I'm not even sure she'll let Remus live, but needless to say, I certainly hope he makes it. And I hope she gives him a good woman along the way.

Best Christmas and holiday wishes to you all,

Kailin


End file.
